


The Butterfly Effect

by Toward_The_Horizon



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band), Kpop - Fandom, UNB (Band)
Genre: ...and others - Freeform, Alternate Universe - College/University, Hybrids, Psychology Students, Sprites, Supernatural Creatures, Supernatural Elements, Vampires, Werewolves, a fun mini game, artsy byeongkwan is an icon, dandy boi donghun, do not do as donghun does, emo Junhee, every ace boy represents an ace song, hipster sehyoon, in fact none of these people are roll models, kpop, some are easier guessed than others
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 40,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28091967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toward_The_Horizon/pseuds/Toward_The_Horizon
Summary: Psychology student Sehyoon picks a random seat on his first day of classes. Somehow, the boys he notices in the row before his keep showing up when he least expects them.
Comments: 63
Kudos: 36





	1. People Watching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (for the people interested in theories, each A.C.E boy in this fic represents one of their songs- some hints are more obvious than others :) happy theorizing xx)

Sehyoon is almost late for his first class and, honestly, he’s lost the ability to be disappointed in himself. He’s just had to accept it, that nothing he does will ever be pristine-perfect, that there’s always going to be someone further up the food chain, that his best intentions- i.e, setting three alarms all a good two hours before his Introduction to Psychology class begins- don’t reap the best results, no matter how hard he tries. His phone had run out of battery in the middle of the night. Alarms had been missed. He’s taken a shower in record time and had sprinted the entire way here. Which means that now he’s very conscious of his breathing, as he shuffles awkwardly past students who’re already sitting, talking in established cliques, some of whom follow him with their eyes in ways that look less than friendly. Maybe it’s just because he’s breathing so loud. 

_Guess I’ll just have to stop breathing_ , he thinks, as he takes an empty seat that’s almost exactly in the middle of the room. The row of chairs in front of him are taken, and the ones behind too, but the row he’s settled on is strangely barren in comparison. Shy people stick to the corners of rooms, he’d heard, probably in some other psychology class. It must be true- as soon as he sits down, he feels as if an overhead spotlight had swung around and begun shining on him, presenting the almost definitely sweaty, panting student who’d been weird enough to sit _straight in the middle of the room_ for all to see. One of the boys in the row in front of him bursts into a bubble of high-pitched laughter as if he can hear what Sehyoon is thinking, and Sehyoon's attention swivels toward him.

People watching usually calms him down... It makes him feel better about himself to call it 'people watching' instead of eavesdropping.

“Tell me about it.”

He has no idea what they’d been talking about, but he tries to pay attention now, to take his mind off of his ridiculous nerves. The boy who’d laughed moves around so much that he can get a good look at his face- he's golden-haired, somehow cherub-like, round cheeks and soft features, completely offset by the neon yellow of his jacket, a leather thing Sehyoon would call an eyesore if it was on anyone else but somehow, seems to work. With the combination of angelic soft looks, the bright yellow leather, and the rest of his stylishly ripped and obscenely form-fitting black shirt and jeans, the boy looks like a walking piece of art. 

The boy to his left is confusingly different- light brown hair, brown blazer, the edge of a tie just visible from where Sungyoon sits behind him. His voice is low, so he can’t hear what he’s saying, not that deep and kind of warm. There’s nothing particularly _artful_ about him. He looks like someone Sehyoon would choose to sit next to if all there was no chance to avoid people and sit alone- not intimidating, not too cool, not someone he’d imagine would even care enough to make small talk. But the three boys seem to be friends, and whatever the plainer boy says is funny enough to make the other two laugh, at least. Sehyoon can’t see much of the third boy, just his back, how his long, fair hair is shot through with blond and piled into a messy top-knot. He has an arm around the artsy boy’s chair and is leaning in closer than the other friend, close enough that _friend_ starts to be followed by a question mark in Sehyoon’s mind.

“This is Chan.” It’s the cherub, pointing to the plain boy.

 _Oh_. Maybe not friends then. He must have been wrong about the small talk thing, too, if he’d thought the plain boy was part of the group.

The lecturer decides to show up, though, before he can hear anything else and start to puzzle out how the three of them seem so friendly for people that seemingly just met each other. Nothing else in class is interesting enough to hold his interest, all _welcome to University,_ and _this is what your guidance tutor is_ , so they’re his main form of entertainment for the two-hours he’s supposed to be here for. They don’t say much, but artsy boy’s hand drops to rest on the third boy’s thigh after a while, tapping a slow rhythm there, and Sehyoon thinks it’s probably safe to assume _friends_ doesn’t fit them.

They’re there, in the same seats, the next day. Sehyoon drops into a chair behind them and pretends to be lost in a New Yorker article on his phone, something he really _does_ need to read for this class. He doesn’t take in a word of it.

The plain one- _Chan, wasn’t it?-_ makes another joke Sehyoon can’t hear, and both of the others laugh at him, the golden-haired one slapping him lightly on the arm, the other spluttering a cough, reaching for the silver flask in front of him.

The cherub turns just in time to see it raised to his lips and freezes. “I don’t think you wanna-”

Whatever had been in the flask is sprayed onto the floor at the third boy’s feet as he spitakes it, bent double, startling the other people on his row, turning back around just as quickly.

“WHY ARE YOU DRINKING A VODKA CRANBERRY AT NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING?”

The cherub shrugs, the sequins of his jacket catching the light like a disco ball. “It’s freshers week.”

“ _That’s_ your excuse?”

Someone a row in front turns around and glares at them, complaining of a headache, and without missing a beat, Chan laughs.

“Hangover?” he asks, and his smooth voice is filled with enough sympathetic mirth that the irritation starts to slip away from the protester’s face.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” the girl says.

The plain boy’s pretty voice drops into a whisper as he swears, “We’ll keep it down.”

Someone sighs, and Sehyoon jolts as a bag comes careening into his line of sight, dropping to the floor by the empty seat beside him. A dark haired boy sits, then looks him over derisively as he holds his phone limply in the air, the forgotten New Yorker article very clearly forgotten, and Sehyoon tries to give a friendly smile as he shoves the phone back into his pocket. 

_Great. The first person he meets already thinks he’s some eavesdropping weirdo._

...And he’s not wrong.

“I’m Sehyoon.”

The dark haired boy runs a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his eyes. Sehyoon thinks he might just be the prettiest person he’s ever seen, if he wasn’t also so terrifying to look straight in the face. “Good for you.”

Sehyoon’s mouth opens and closes like a goldfish’s. He’s saved from himself by the three boys in front of them erupting into laughter again, Chan shushing them theatrically with a smile, the cherub slapping his arm. He’s almost certain he sees his new desk-mate roll his eyes.

He tries not to be obvious about it, but he can’t help trying to suss him out, too. Sehyoon hates to admit it, but he’s just as interested in the ‘bad’ people as the ‘good,’ maybe a little more. People that don’t immediately open up to him tend to catch his interest the most.

The guy sitting next to him already has huge headphones on, and a risky glance at his face shows he’s closed his eyes too, sitting back in his chair with his head tipped slightly backwards, like he’s trying to fall asleep. Black button up, black leather jacket, black jeans, black hair, one black combat boot pulled up onto the edge of his chair. The silver cuff on his wrist is the most colourful thing about him. And then Sehyoon glances back up to see dark eyes staring back at him.

“Do I have _please stare at me like a freak_ written across my forehead or something?”

Sehyoon snaps his head back to face the front of the room. “Uh, sorry.”

The other boy doesn’t say anything, just sighs again, dropping both feet onto the carpeted floor and grabbing the bag he’d dropped into the seat at his other side. Sehyoon gulps, mouth suddenly dry, now trying _not_ to pay attention, but it’s so obvious that whatever the guy’s looking for isn’t in his bag, it’s hard not to turn back around and ask him what’s wrong.

He’s just about to clear his throat and risk certain death anyway, because he can’t stand another moment of the angry rifling, when the boy tosses his bag back down and reaches across the table, tapping the long-haired boy on the shoulder.

“You got a pen?”

_Really? Tough guy forgot to bring a pen on the first day?_

_Shit, did_ I _bring a pen on the first day?_

Sehyoon pats down his jacket pockets and finds a byro somewhere, sighing with relief. He guesses he shouldn’t be too offended that he wasn’t scary-guy’s first choice of ally.

“Sure man.”

There’s a second where the guy with the top-knot turns around to hand over a pen that Sehyoon gets a glance at his face, the sharp set of his eyes, high nose, bow-shaped lips, and the starting swirls of ink on his neck, where a tattoo disappears under his shirt. He gives a tight smile as he hands the pen over that makes it clear he’s not really the talking type, at least not to the people outside of his little group of three, though there’s nothing _mean_ about his face. Chan, the plain boy, is in profile now, looking over his shoulder slightly, and just as Sehyoon thinks he might call out Sehyoon's new desk-mate for being rude, he turns back around.

It’s just another introductory class- like most of them will be until freshers week is over- so there’s no register, no horrible ice breakers, nothing to do but seem like he’s paying attention to information he already knows. He doesn’t learn anyone’s name, doesn’t talk to anyone, and when he gets to the cafeteria and finds an empty table in the corner of the room, Sehyoon finally feels like he can breath again.

For about five minutes.

Then someone’s sliding into the chair opposite him. Sehyoon looks up, wide-eyed, to see a glittery jacket and bright smile.

“Mind if I sit?”

_You already are, aren’t you?_

“Sure.”

“I thought I recognised you from class,” the cherub says, leaning over the table, one hand extended out as if he’s going to grab Sehyoon’s hand in his, but stops just short. “I did, didn’t I?”

Sehyoon tries not to immediately nod, tries not to make it obvious that he’d noticed the three of them. “I- yeah, I was sitting behind you, I think.”

“With the grumpy guy,” cherub presses, and, a little bewildered, Sehyoon nods. “He a friend of yours?”

“Uh, no, I don’t know anyone at this school.”

Maybe it’s too much to divulge so suddenly, and Sehyoon’s mouth snaps shut with embarrassment, but the cherub laughs delightedly and actually _does_ reach for his hand this time, giving it a gentle pat before pulling away.

“Well, I’ll just have to save you and introduce myself, then,” he says, and Sehyoon’s eyes fly over his features, trying to figure out how such softness, when all combined together, can make such sly expressions. “Byeongkwan.”

Sehyoon sits bolt upright, snapping out of his thoughts, realising he’s probably been staring for too long. “Uh, Sehyoon.”

Byeongkwan laughs again. “How very nice to meet you, uh-Sehyoon. I’m not wrong in thinking we have something in common?”

The muddled cogs of Sehyoon’s brain grind very, very slowly as Byeongkwan blinks at him, smiling expectantly.

“Excuse me?”

The smile droops slightly. “You’re not a sprite?”

“Oh. Oh!” _He really should have guessed._ If the cherub-like looks weren’t enough, he should have recognised the friendly, bubbly air Byeongkwan has. “No, no I’m, um, I’m half nymph.”

Byeongkwan _ooh_ s as if this was something interesting, and opens his mouth to say something, but is cut off.

“Bee!”

It’s another voice, booming from the front of the room, near the counter, and Sehyoon notices the boy with the long hair at the front of the lunch line, not bothering to look over his shoulder as he nods at the worker and accepts two styrofoam cups. Without checking behind him, he starts walking toward the exit, and Byeongkwan sighs.

“Woops.” He fixes Sehyoon with a parting smile, even slyer than the last, as if they’re sharing a private joke Sehyoon doesn’t understand. “Best be on my way.” 

Sehyoon nods in a way he hopes is polite and doesn’t look like he’s been struck dumb, and Byeongkwan’s chair scrapes tile as he stands. He ruffles his hair, disrupting it into messier honey-waves, and winks down at Sehyoon mischievously.

“Later, handsome.”

And then he’s gone, and Sehyoon’s left with a now-cold coffee at a now-empty table, a waft of cherry-scented air following Byeongkwan out of the door. He sighs, and sinks further into his chair.


	2. Open Air

Despite their introduction, he doesn’t speak to Byeongkwan for the rest of the week- in every class, the three boys are in front of him, already sitting and chatting, laughing at jokes he can’t hear, when Sehyoon manages to drag himself through the rows of desks. Now they’d spoken, everything he sees Byeongkwan do seems familiar- the elegant motions of his hands as he speaks, just like Sehyoon’s family when they have a good story to tell, the few times he shows up with flowers in his wavy hair, his bubbling laughter. Though he guesses the link between them both is thin, Byeongkwan himself _did_ seem to acknowledge it, and now they’ve gone back to ignoring each other, there’s a restless, dissatisfied feeling clinging to Sehyoon whenever he takes a seat behind him. He sees the scary boy who’d forgotten to bring a pen a few times but, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t seem very eager to ever sit near him again. It’s on friday, the morning class that will end his first week as a freshman, that he actually talks to _anyone._

He’d caught long-haired boy’s name in a register at some point, is fairly certain it’s Donghun, but hadn’t so much as shared a glance with the boy until now, when they’re randomly put into the same group for...Sehyoon really should have been paying more attention to the task briefing. He’s hoping top-knot guy will be nicer than someone _else_ he’d met and might explain it to him.

This time, Donghun’s alone. He’s sitting in Byeongkwan’s usual seat, one row ahead of Sehyoon, but this time the chairs either side of him are vacant. It had been a surprise, to see the group split up, but Donghun doesn’t seem to mind- he’d spent the whole class with his arms stretched over the back of the empty chairs, as if suddenly free to sprawl across the entire row, perfectly content by himself, if only you ignore the way his fingers had been tapping at the chair frames almost constantly.

He hasn’t moved since turning round to meet his eye, so Sehyoon stands and shuffles through rows of chairs, leaving one between him and Donghun so one less person in his class will think of him as some weird pervert. Donghun turns to talk to him, maybe to introduce himself, and frowns at the distance. Sehyoon shuffles up a chair.

“I’m sorry,” he says, which, in hind-sight, is not a good start, “but I didn’t actually catch what we were supposed to be doing-”

“Don’t bother, I’ve got it.” To his surprise, Donghun shoves the notebook he’d been doodling in further away from himself. He puts an elbow on his desk, one hand cradling the back of his head, and Sehyoon sees another swirl of ink at his wrist, partially covered by a woven bracelet. He offers Sehyoon another one of his tight, barely-there smiles. 

“You’re that guy my boyfriend keeps talking about.”

Not the thing Sehyoon had been expecting him to say.

He laughs incredulously and then realises laughing is probably the worst thing he could do in this kind of situation. Donghun just keeps looking at him, not smiling. “I don’t think so,” Sehyoon says weakly.

Donghun furrows his brows. “It _is_ Sehyoon, right?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s...me.” The long-haired boy blinks at him. “I don’t know who your boyfriend is,” Sehyoon finds himself saying, and then he freezes. The lie had slipped out before he was even aware of thinking it up, the same instinct to feign ignorance he’d felt when Byeongkwan had approached him, this time made stronger by the way Donghun seems to be expecting something from him, Donghun who’s far less friendly than his cherub counterpart, who seems so much more comfortable by himself than Sehyoon ever would.

“You’ll know him,” Donghun says, and Sehyoon’s stomach twists with nerves, expecting to be called out, but then Donghun starts rattling off descriptions. “Kinda short. Real talkative, likes dressing flashy. Nice ass.”

“Oh, yeah.” _Wait, shit._ “I mean-no-”

Donghun startles him by barking a quick, wicked laugh. “He was right,” he says, grinning, as dark eyes crawl over every inch of Sehyoon’s face, “you really are easy, aren’t you?”

Sehyoon splutters. “What?” He finds a finger suddenly pointing at his face.

“You’re blushing.”

The shaky exhale Sehyoon releases sounds like another laugh, and he holds his hands in the air, pleading innocence. “Listen, I’ve barely even talked to your boyfriend-”

“Relax, man, we’re not like that. He talks about that friend of yours, too.”

“Friend?” Donghun nods and shrugs at the same time. 

“The vamp.”

 _Vampire? He must mean scary guy, they saw us together._ And now Sehyoon would put money on the fact that the boy in front of him is a wolf- they’re always the best at spotting the vampires. _Though I guess his senses aren’t as honed when it comes to the_ friends _part._

Sehyoon should probably correct that, but the admittance that he’s entirely friendless would hardly be beneficial to his image, especially since Byeongkwan didn't mention it, and anyway, he’s more interested in the easy way Donghun is still holding himself, casually slouching low in his chair. “You’re ok with that?”

“What, are we in couples therapy now?”

“No,” Sehyoon says immediately, loud enough that a group in front of them turn around to stare. “Sorry. No, you’re right, that’s not my place.”

Donghun sizes him up with a quick drop of his gaze. “You think I have anything to be jealous of?”

“N-no, of course-”

A slow smile starts to stretch Donghun’s lips. 

Sehyoon sighs. “You’re messing with me again, aren’t you?”

“You really _do_ make it easy,” Donghun says, as if it’s a justification.

Sehyoon bites back a laugh. “Don’t be an ass. Tell me what we’re supposed to be doing.”

Donghun makes a soft noise at the back of his throat, as if he’s impressed. Then he drags his notebook back towards him, and they get to work.

It’s an easy task, not requiring enough concentration to get lost in. They finish with plenty of time to spare, and after a minute of silence that Donghun seems to have no intention of breaking, Sehyoon decides he might as well ask the thing that’s been on his mind since he got here.

“Why are you sitting by yourself?”

Donghun gives him a strange look. “What?”

“Just-” he struggles to find something to say that wouldn’t make him seem like a crazy stalker, and settles on, “Byeongkwan told me he was in this class. I haven’t saw him.”

There’s a beat of horrible silence, and then Donghun’s nodding, one sharp tip of his chin. “Hangover,” he says, bluntly. Sehyoon wonders if he’s hit a nerve. “He wouldn’t get out of bed.”

Sehyoon lets out a little awkward laugh, though he himself doesn’t know what about that could be funny. He guesses asking about Chan too would definitely betray the fact that he’d noticed them all together, so he doesn’t ask, and Donghun doesn’t mention him. It feels strange knowing his name anyway, when he hasn’t even seen his face. Would he even be able to pick Chan out of a crowd? All he knows about the boy is the shape of the back of his head and his penchant for boring beige blazers.

It’s dark by the time he drags himself up the flights and flights of stairs to his box-room, stumbling in the darkness, belly full of bland food as he sighs and drops onto his uneven old mattress. A single room suits him just fine, and it’s usually not so bad, because he plans on spending more time in class and the library than in his own room anyway, and at least there’s a tiny little bathroom attached to it, just for him. But it’s worse in the dark. The small room only seems smaller, the air too close. His floor’s completely silent. He thinks there might be something to say about making friends with people who are the opposite of yourself- he had met the eye of another boy on his floor that morning, but neither of them had said a word. His entire floor seems to be just like him, too quiet, too uncertain of themselves not to be too quiet. Maybe he’s just thinking too much. He needs air.

It takes considerable effort to wrestle the rusty window open, and it only cracks halfway. The night air is chilled and crisp, and instantly he feels better, feels the threatening headache and bout of melancholy drift away with the gentle breeze. There’s just enough room to rest his elbows on the bottom of the sill, feel the frozen metal chill his skin through his shirt, and he lets his hand dangle out in the open air, leaning just enough that his head’s outside his room, too.

Silence, but more bearable now that it’s external, broken every now and again by the monotonous drone of a passing engine, and the darkness isn’t as complete, interspersed with orange fireflies of distant streetlights. There’s another block of accommodation across the way, only slightly better than his own, and a few lights are still on. Sehyoon turns his gaze away as he spots the figure of a girl outlined in one of the windows, who might be facing him. It’s hard to tell with the distance.

One deep breath, two. He tries to calm the jitters with every gulp of cold air, feeling strange for feeling so normal. His heartbeat is slow, even, his breaths level, so he can’t place the restlessness, just knows it’s there, despite all the signs of calm that try to smother it. Silence.

And then something whizzes past his face.

He leaps back into the safety of his room before he’s even really conscious of it, the feeling of the air beside his face distorted with a falling object- _something from the roof?_ No, surely not. But there’s a shriek of noise, and then a duller commotion, and when he hesitantly steps back up to the window, he’s almost certain it’s coming from above him.

_There’re people up on the roof._

He squints down at the dark ground below, but he’s too high up, and it’s too pitch-black to see whether anything lies shattered in the grass. There’s another sound from above that sounds like a door slamming, and the voices stop.

Sehyoon goes back to bed. He keeps the window open and stares at the ceiling.

And then he rolls to his feet and goes to check on the sound.

It’s not as if he’s going to get much sleep, now his restlessness has only been worsened by the fright of that falling object, and then the yelling, and without knowing what it was that had caused the sound he knows he’ll just lie awake, staring at his ceiling. The walk might do him good. And it’s not as if he’s going to find anything anyway- who’d be up on the rooftop so late at night? He’ll just walk up the stairs, check the door is locked, and get back to bed.

But it’s not locked- the door’s propped open with a bucket that looks like it must have been stolen from a janitor’s closet, bright yellow and still filled with a shallow puddle of water, weighed down by a bunch of textbooks someone has piled up inside.

Sehyoon hesitates, then steps out into the cold.

At first, he doesn’t spot him, but then his own shoes scuff on the loose gravel, and the figure he hadn’t yet spotted turns, suddenly visible, as light from a distant window catches his profile.

“Donghun?”

The dark figure leans a little further back as if squinting in the darkness, and then grunts, a sound that might be interest, but could just as easily be disappointment. “Sehyoon. You live in this building?”

“Um, yes.” Sehyoon puts his arms out in front of him- his eyes have adjusted, so he can see Donghun now, below him (he must be sitting,) and a few feet in front of himself, but it’s still too dark for him to be comfortable wandering around on a rooftop. “Do you?”

“Top floor.”

“Two above mine.”

The grunt comes again, this time sounding considerably less interested. “Care to join me?”

“What’re you doing?”

Donghun spreads his arms wide in a grand, sarcastic gesture. “Sight-seeing.”

Sehyoon talks another step and freezes. Now he can see Donghun, and the edge of the roof. Now he can see where Donghun’s sitting, back to the metal railing, legs dangling over the edge.

“I don’t think you should be up here.”

Donghun snorts and turns to look back out over the roof. His long hair is undone, hanging down around his face, only adding to the kind of rugged charm the plaid jackets and woven bracelets give him. _Definitely a wolf._ “Then neither should you,” he points out.

“I- heard voices. Did you drop something?”

“My lighter.”

Sehyoon realises there’s a strange, burnt smell in the air, and before he can stop himself, instinctively says, “Tobacco’s really bad for you.”

Donghun snorts, immediately making him feel boring, and childish and uninteresting. “Who said anything about tobacco?”

“You’re _high_ right now?”

Donghun makes a show of looking down at the ground far below them. “Pretty high, yeah.”

_Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh._

Sehyoon puts his hands on his hips as if it might suddenly give him authority over a certifiable werewolf who’s high off his ass. “Come on, you should come back behind the barrier.”

“Don’t be a bore,” Donghun groans, swaying as he swings his feet, “it’s more fun this way.”

“Donghun please, it’s not safe.”

The wolf snickers. “Yeah, _duh_ , that’s the fun part.”

The metal of the barrier is so cold Sehyoon’s scared to touch it lest it stick to his palm like an ice cube, and even more scared _not_ to hold onto it, as he steps up to the boundary and risks a glance at the street far, far below.

_Ooooooh, bad idea._

Dizzy, he takes another step back, so he can’t see the fall. His voice is breathy and too high as he asks, “You’re not afraid of heights?”

“Course I am,” Donghun shrugs.

Sehyoon resists the urge to snap about how insane that sounds, but in their current situation, screaming at someone who’s clearly not all there might be a _very_ dangerous misstep.

“Then why the hell can’t you just come back behind the barrier?” he asks, succeeding in keeping his voice an acceptable volume, not quite keeping the impatience out of it. Donghun doesn’t hear it anyway, or acts like he doesn’t.

“It’s like when people watch horror movies ‘cause they know they’ll be scared,” he explains, and Sehyoon has the sudden urge to windmill his arms around in frustration.

Instead, he says, “I don’t think this is anything like that.”

Donghun turns to look over his shoulder for a moment, just enough that Sehyoon can see the blissed-out smile on his lips. “Sure it is. You don’t like that feeling? The butterflies just before the fall-” he starts to tip forward, hands gripping the barrier behind him, and Sehyoon lurches forward to grab the back of his jacket as he leans over the edge of the roof into open air.

“No!”

Donghun lurches back to the barrier, hitting his head with the force of Sehyoon’s pull, and roars with laughter. “You should have saw your face!”

“I’m not kidding, Donghun, get back behind the barrier.”

This time, Donghun winces. “Yikes. Fine, if you’re going to be like that.”

He almost makes him regret the demand, very purposefully standing straight up before slinking back through a gap in the barrier, one awful moment when he’s not even holding on to anything to stop himself falling, but then the worst is over, and he’s cross-legged at Sehyoon’s feet, looking moody.

_I should get him off of the roof before he tries anything again. How did he even get up here? Were they with him too, Byeongkwan and Chan? Was it their voices I heard?_

“Where’s Byeongkwan?”

“In bed,” Donghun says shortly, rolling onto his back instead of getting to his feet. Sehyoon shuffles, uncertain what to do, and the long haired boy lets out a huge sigh, staring at the starless sky above them.

“You should get back to your room,” he tries, and Donghun tilts his head to grin up at him, eyes far too shrewd for someone in his condition.

“Should I take you with me?” There’s a glint behind his eyes, but that might just be the low light, and it’s hard to gauge the intentions behind the question. Sehyoon puts it down to high nonsense and shakes his head.

“It’s past midnight.”

This doesn’t seem to sway Donghun at all. “Byeongkwan’d be happy to see you.”

_He would?_

“He won’t be sleeping?”

Donghun laughs as if he’d told a joke. “Doubt it,” he says. “He doesn’t do that very much.”

“Then you should get back and keep him company.”

Unexpectedly, Donghun pouts for only a second, and then bargains, “Will you get my lighter for me?”

“No.” Sehyoon tugs on one of the boy’s arms, succeeding only in lifting his head from the concrete for a second before Donghun is fighting back, wriggling out of his grip.

“It’s just one trip down,” he opposes. 

Sehyoon sighs, and stops trying to lift him. “It’s just a lighter. It’s probably smashed to pieces anyway.”

“It’ll be fine,” Donghun says, a little sharply. “It always is.”

_Always?_

“How often do you do things like this?”

“I don’t think you really want to know the answer to that,” Donghun laughs. Then he studies Sehyoon hovering above him for a moment, and grows slightly more serious, as serious as a boy lying spread out on a rooftop with his hair haloing his head in a tangled mess _can_ look. “Please. It’s important to me.”

Sehyoon scoffs. “You dropped it off of a rooftop,” he says, louder than he’d meant to, the cold now sunken fully into his bones, his breath crafting white clouds in the air.

“Accidents happen,” Donghun says mildly. His eyes are heavy-lidded, and Sehyoon starts to panic. Manhandling a sleeping wolf down a flight of stairs and trying to find his room himself is not how he wants this night to end. Time for some negotiation of his own. 

“If I get it for you, will you promise to go to bed and sleep off whatever it is you’re on right now?”

Gravel crunches under him as Donghun shrugs. “Sure.”

“Can you find your room by yourself?”

The wolf glares up at him. “I’m high, not blind.”

“Right, great. What’s your room number?” Heavy-lidded eyes narrow suspiciously. Sehyoon throws up his hands. “I need it so I can give you the lighter.”

“601.”

“OK.” He holds a hand out, and Donghun eyes it. “Let’s go.”


	3. Dominoes

_This is stupid. This is so stupid. I’m never going to find it, it’s already been shattered into a million tiny little pieces across campus because some werewolf who’s clearly out of his mind threw it off of a goddamn rooftop-_

Sehyoon sighs and throws the doors of the dormitory block open, braving the cold air again, with every intention to cast his eyes around for a while, step back into the heated entranceway to kill some time, and then chap on Donghun’s door with an apology and pretend he’d been looking the entire time. It’s not as if the wolf’s in any state to argue with much clarity- though, now Sehyoon thinks about it, are high people usually so easy to understand? Apart from the whole _standing on the edge of a rooftop a dozen floors above the ground whilst inebriated_ thing, Donghun hadn’t really seemed too out of it, and the way he was talking made it seem as if the rooftop thing was a habit, a frequent vice not to be blamed on the drug.

_Great. That makes it so much better. He’s not crazy because he’s high, he’s just high because he’s crazy._

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and turns on the flash. The light catches instantly on something in the grass barely an inch from the edge of his boot and Sehyoon doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He scoops it up, turning it over in his hand, inspecting it in the strong beam of the flashlight for cracks, but the thing must be invincible, because the weird bulletproof-looking black metal is barely scratched. Hesitantly, Sehyoon raises it to his nose. It smells like cherries. Byeongkwan must have enchanted it, somehow.

Something scrapes asphalt a few feet ahead of him- Sehyoon’s head whips up just in time to see the scary boy who’d sat beside him in their first lesson slowing a jog into a slow walk, and so has a great view of when the boy spots him, holding a lighter up to his nose, alone in the dark outside a campus dorm just after midnight.

_Can this guy have any worse timing?_

Sehyoon lowers the lighter to his side as quickly as he can, but scary guy’s brows are already furrowed, and he looks unimpressed as he approaches, slightly out of breath, skin glistening, taking an earphone out of his ear.

_Does he have a death wish? Who runs by themself on nights like this?_

_Crap, Donghun was right._

“Uh-”

The vampire walks directly past him as Sehyoon stutters. “Don’t care.”

The door swings closed behind him. By the time Sehyoon turns around, he’s gone.

_He lives here. The vampire who looks like he wants to murder me lives in the same building as me. Of course. Of course this happens to me._

Sehyoon worries about it so much that he barely notices all the flights of stairs he has to climb to get to Donghun’s floor until he’s knocking on a door marked _601_ and feeling his entire body suddenly scream in protest.

The door swings open as he’s stretching out his shoulders- the boy who’s standing in the doorway’s eyes light up with surprise.

“Um- I- have I got the wrong room?”

“Chan?” a voice calls, from inside the room. “Who is it?”

 _Chan?_ ** _This_** _is Chan?_ Almost a week without interacting with any of them, and he’s interacting more with them in one night? And how had he been so sudden to label him, when he hadn’t even known what he looked like? _Plain_ is never something he’d call the boy blinking back at him- blinking back at him, waiting for him to speak.

_Shit, he doesn’t know who I am._

He clears his throat awkwardly and leans a little closer to the door, recognising Byeongkwan’s voice as the one that’d called out, and calls back, “It’s-it’s Sehyoon. Donghun asked me to bring his lighter back.” 

“Oh,” Chan laughs. It’s a nice sound. It’s a really nice sound. “Well, he passed out, so, you can give it to me.”

Sehyoon blinks at him. “Yeah! Yeah, sure. Here.”

Wide lips stretch into a lazy smile. Chan’s fingers curl around the lighter Sehyoon drops into his outstretched palm. “Thank you, Sehyoon.” 

It’s the same voice he’d heard that first day, warm and inviting, as if they’d been friends forever, as if there’s no one else Chan’d rather talk to, and instinctively Sehyoon takes a nervous step back.

“No problem,” he laughs. _Why am I doing that again? What’s so damn funny?_ Chan just gives him a friendly, wide smile, watching him walk a few steps before moving to close the door.

It’s only when he gets back to his own room, and his cheeks have stopped burning so noticeably, safe in the darkness as he stares up at his ceiling, does he realise Chan had known his name.

He has the entire weekend to himself to overthink things. Maybe it’s not that strange. Chan’d been in Byeongkwan and Donghun’s room, after all, and Donghun himself had known Sehyoon’s name because of Byeongkwan. Chan could have been there when they were talking about him, overheard his name and a basic description- _floppy black hair and hipster glasses_ maybe. _Wears too many vests._ Something like that. Maybe it just made such an impression on him because he had seen less of Chan than either of the other boys, and it had been a surprise to see him answering the door, as if the three of them had never separated. 

_Had they? Had Chan been in that class, when he’d noticed Byeongkwan missing?_ He hadn’t bothered to look around for him, but he definitely wasn’t in his usual seat. Could he have been with Byeongkwan then, too, when they hadn’t shown up to class? That’d mean they’d both left Donghun by himself. Surely they wouldn’t. But then, why would he even be in their room that late at night? 

It’s stranger the more he thinks about it. Choosing that seat just behind them, without even noticing them, at first, had it really lead to all of this? To finding them at every turn, Byeongkwan in a cafeteria, Donghun of all places on a late night rooftop, the dark boy just outside his own dormitory, Chan unexpectedly opening a door? It seems as if choosing that particular seat had set off, more than a butterfly effect of introductions and meetings, a crashing game of dominos, set off from both sides at once, tumbling toward him. Just that particular seat, and now he can’t stop bumping into them, seeing them everywhere, thinking about them constantly.

No. He refuses to stay in his tiny box room and think about other people’s lives- the library would be better, he thinks, and because there’s still no real work to be done after only one week of classes, he selects a book at random and curls up in an armchair on one of the noisier floors. There are second and third years milling about, so at least he’s not the only one there, though he doesn’t recognise anyone.

It’s nice, actually. He buys a coffee and a flaky kind of pastry that’s sweet enough to cover the coffee taste and realises the book he’d selected at random is interesting enough to get lost in, some kind of history of clinical psychology trials that might even come in handy near assignment time, and he spends the better part of the day there, by himself but not surrounded by silence, on a spacious floor instead of a cooped up, close room.

When people start leaving, it gets trickier. Though he hadn’t minded being alone until now, and is more than used to keeping himself company, dinner time alone in his dorm room is almost too depressing to bear. He procrastinates, fooling around on computers, wandering aisles, until his empty stomach starts protesting, and then drags himself out into the light rain of an overcast day he’d mostly wasted and tries not to look like he’s lost. But he is. He refuses to eat in the cafeteria every night. But...he’s not sure where else to go.

Most people leaving the library are turning back toward the direction of the dorms, but a group or two are going the opposite way. Should he follow someone and see if they’ll take him to a cheap restaurant? But what then? He’d eat alone, surrounded by people who might recognise him from class, but wouldn’t ask him to join them? He’d really rather avoid the label of ‘loner’ this year. 

No. Better to play it safe. Besides, the cafeteria food isn’t _bad_.

He drags himself up what feels like a thousand flights of stairs and flicks the lightswitch by his door. His dorm room is cast in a warm orange glow- the place could really do with some work. Maybe that’s what he could do with the remainder of his weekend, he thinks, as he trades a vest for a warmer sweater, fixes the collar of the shirt underneath and throws his bag down. A new duvet, some nicer pillows. The only thing he’d changed since he got here is the row of tiny plant pots on his windowsill, and even those are a dull grey colour. He could paint them. And cover the weird cork board above his desk that he can’t seem to detach from the wall with something. Get a cushion for the chair.

The puzzle pieces he’d been collecting in his mind go breaking off again as a knock startles him out of his musing. Maybe he’d been wrong about his introvert neighbours. Or maybe it’s a noise complaint for yelling at Donghun on the stairs last night.

Or maybe it’s Donghun himself, standing outside his door with his hand still outstretched, though he’s turned the other way, looking down the corridor.

“Hello?”

The wolf’s head whips back around to face him. “Ah, there you are.” He raises his voice, turning slightly back toward the corridor as he yells, “Found him!”

Sehyoon blinks in astonishment. “How did you know my room number?”

Instead of explaining, Donghun steps back away from the door so Sehyoon can look around himself, and he spots Byeongkwan and Chan either side of the corridor, Byeongkwan trotting toward him from a closed door and Chan, to the left, thanking a girl standing in the doorway of another room and approaching, too. 

“We didn’t, we just thought we’d check them all,” Byeongkwan says.

“You told me your floor, remember?” Donghun asks.

 _Oh._ “Yeah, I, I guess I did.” He’s impressed that Donghun remembered, in the state he was in. 

Sehyoon shuffles, his hand still holding the door handle. “Did you need something? I gave your lighter-”

Donghun waves a hand through the air. “To Chan, yeah, I got it.”

“We were going to dinner,” Byeongkwan interrupts, jumping up to Donghun and slinking a hand around his waist. He has his golden hair tied in two bunches at the top of his head, the butterfly clips on either side matching the blue sparkling shadow lining his eyes. “We thought you might like to join us.”

Chan waltzes up to Donghun’s other side. “You haven’t ate already, have you?” he asks, thtough a laugh, a wide smile starting to turn the corners of his lips up ever-so-slightly.

“Or we could go for drinks,” Byeongkwan says immediately, not giving Sehyoon a chance to answer, raising a hand in the air in that strange way he has, always ready to grab an arm or a hand or a shoulder, anything for a sense of closeness.

“I-I haven’t ate, yet.”

“Great,” Byeongkwan says, as if he really means it, “come with us.”

_How do they just keep showing up when I least expect it?_

He can’t decide whether he wants to go- well, that’s not it, exactly. Of course he wants to go. It’d just be so much easier to stay by himself.

“Where are you going?” he asks, as the three of them keep standing outside his door. He wonders if they would really take no for an answer.

Donghun shrugs. “Chan knows a place.”

The boy in question nods. “You’re not a vegetarian, I hope?”

Sehyoon dumbly shakes his head, and Chan rubs his hands together, sucking air through his teeth, a strange gesture that makes the other boys smile, so Sehyoon guesses it must be a good thing, even if it looks a little like Sehyoon’s just unwittingly made himself an accomplice to an evil plot.

“You ready?” Donghun asks him.

 _Am I?_ Almost definitely not, but he’s no more underdressed than Chan and Donghun- though the wolf’s wearing a waistcoat that matches his jacket, his hair’s down again, and the rugged image manages to remove any formality the dress might have- and fixing his hair a little won’t make any difference when he’s next to Byeongkwan. He pretends to contemplate it as if he might have had any prior plans, but in the end, all that’s left to do is close the door behind him. “Sure.”

Byeongkwan whoops, and Chan’s smile this time shows his teeth. “Then follow me.”

They file out of the corridor and start down the stairs, Byeongkwan detaching himself from Donghun’s side to sling an arm through Sehyoon’s, holding on with both of his own. He’s in the same sparkly jacket Sehyoon had saw him in before, the one that lights up like a giant blue-and-purple disco ball when it catches the light, which happens to be always, with the amount of glitter it has stuck to it, and a pair of striped jeans. Sehyoon’s certain he would be jealous of him, if he didn’t like the boy so much already.

He glances in front of them to where Donghun and Chan are sauntering down the stairs. “D’you know where he’s taking us?”

Byeongkwan giggles and shrugs as best he can with their arms linked together. “Where’s the fun in that? Let’s just see where we end up.”

It sounds like something Donghun had said to him last night, up on the rooftop. _That’s the fun part._ Everything’s _fun_ with them. At least Byeongkwan’s idea of fun appears safer than Donghun’s.

“Thanks, by the way,” Byeongkwan says, as if he can read his mind. “For last night.”

Sehyoon tries not to wince. He’d half been expecting to wake up that morning with an angry wolf at his door, threatening him not to tell anyone what he’d saw, but Donghun, if anything, seems to like him more now. “Was he OK?”

To his surprise, the sprite laughs. “You don’t need to look so concerned. He’s just like that.”

“Just like _what_?”

“Oh, you know. A little wild.” Sehyoon must still look doubtful, because Byeongkwan laughs again and slaps his arm. “It’s nothing to worry about, really. He’s sturdy.”

“ _Sturdy?”_ Donghun repeats, and with a start, Sehyoon realises he must have been able to hear their entire conversation, no matter how much he’d been trying to lower his voice. “It sounds like you're describing furniture.”

“I’m sure it was meant to be a good thing,” Chan reassures. Donghun shakes his head, though Sehyoon’s pretty sure he catches a glimpse of a smile in the reflection of the wolf in the front door. Chan pushes it open, and Donghun follows close behind- only to stop, and grab the doorway just in time to avoid crashing into Chan’s back.

“ _Shit_.”

Byeongkwan giggles, and drops Sehyoon’s arm to steady him. Sehyoon shuffles out of the doorway with the rest of them and sees the reason for their stopping, a dark figure sitting on the steps leading up to the door, looking down at a dead phone screen.

Chan laughs sympathetically, as the vampire raises his head to stare at them. “It’s Junhee, isn’t it?” he asks, and the vampire frowns in time with Sehyoon. Chan really seems to know everyone. “Locked out of your room?”

“Jun,” the vampire corrects, with the same bluntness as ever. Sehyoon tries not to look away as the boy’s eyes find him in the crowd, and then roll away again. “And I’m waiting for a friend.”

“Who is it,” Chan asks, already hunting for his phone, “I’ll probably know them.”

“They’re on their way,” Jun says. Surprised, Chan glances back down at him, phone uselessly held aloft.

“You could come with us,” Byeongkwan suggests, as if trying to fill the sudden, tense silence. “Though I guess you don’t eat much-”

“I’ll stay here,” Jun says. This time, at least, he gives Byeongkwan a sharp smile, though it might be more of a _stop bothering me already_ gesture than a show of kindness.

Either way, they leave him, and Chan starts marching toward their destination again. 

“Didn’t you say you two were friends?” Donghun asks, and though he’s only trying to make polite conversation, Sehyoon’s stomach swoops anxiously.

“I wouldn’t say we’re very close,” he says, running a hand through his hair, a nervous tic he catches too late.

Byeongkwan hums, amused, as if to say _clearly_. Sehyoon wonders whether maybe the reason they’re not suspicious of the lie is because they don’t care enough to think about it very much, or whether he just seems like someone who might talk to people but not really befriend them, like Chan and his infinite connections he never seems to pay attention to. Whichever one it is, no one questions him.

“Would it kill him to switch it up?” the sprite says, throwing a glance back over his shoulder. “At least some dark grey?”

Donghun chuckles and throws an arm around Chan’s shoulder. “Maybe he was _trying_ to blend into the shadows.” 

“Stop,” Chan says, hitting Donghun’s stomach lightly with the back of his hand. “He can probably still hear you.”

Donghun shrugs, unperturbed, letting Byeongkwan pull his arm from Chan’s shoulders and onto his own, linking their fingers together. Chan glances over his shoulder one last time. There’s a faint, breathy sound that Sehyoon thinks is a snicker, but when he glances around for an explanation, he only sees Donghun and Byeongkwan sharing a look, no one laughing. Maybe he’d imagined it. 

Chan leads them on through the dark. The place he takes them to is everything Sehyoon had been expecting it to be- tucked away, quiet, nondescript. On the outside, at least.

When they step inside, everything’s crimson and gold paint, dark, plush carpet underfoot, cordoned off-square booths with leather so thick Sehyoon feels like he might fall asleep as soon as he’s sitting down. The lights are low, and there are a few other patrons, not as quiet as Sehyoon had feared from the outside, the tinted windows doing much to shield the ambience to anyone looking in. Chan shepherds them to a table without waiting for a server, sitting at the very end of one side of the semi-circle booth in a way that makes it clear how many times he has been here before.

Byeongkwan looks around, wide eyed. In the dim light, the blue glitter on his eyes sparks. “How’d you find this place?”

Chan, who’s in the process of handing out sets of cutlery, smiles gently. “A friend knows the owner.”

“Does that mean discounts?” Donghun asks, eyeing the gold of his fork suspiciously.

Chan laughs. “I’m sure I could persuade them.”

Menus are passed around, from Chan to Donghun to Byeongkwan, who hands his own over to Sehyoon without so much as glancing at it.

“Someone order for me,” the sprite grins, not seeming very interested in _who_. Donghun nods distractedly, frowning down at the menu. Sehyoon takes a deep breath, dreading the figures he’s bound to see beside every meal, but before he can even glance at the words Donghun is huffing and closing his menu again.

“How ‘bout barbeque for the table?”

Byeongkwan laughs and rolls his eyes at the same time. “So you don’t have to choose?”

“It’s either that or I order half the menu and you’ll have to wait until I’m finished,” Donghun says, holding his hands out in front of him as if to say _my hands are tied, I have no choice._

Byeongkwan seems more than used to this kind of behaviour. “Barbeque it is.”

“That OK with you?” It’s Chan’s smooth voice, and Sehyoon glances across the table to see eyes on his, one eyebrow quirked in question.

Sehyoon nods hastily. “I’ll eat anything.”

Donghun snatches his menu with a grin. “Atta boy.” Immediately, he hands the menus back to Chan, who piles them in front of himself on the tabletop, and leans in to whisper something in his ear. The corners of Chan’s lips turn up, but he slaps Donghun away from him as if they were bickering. Sehyoon takes the moment they’re distracted to poke Byeongkwan on the arm.

“Is he always like this?” he asks, voice low.

Byeongkwan laughs in a way that might sound exasperated if from him it didn’t sound so glamorous, and so obviously fond. “How he hates choosing,” he sighs, shaking his head. Sehyoon already has an image of Donghyun in his head that this ties into, everything fun, everything in abundance. He supposes Byeongkwan isn't very different, either- he hadn't chosen for himself, after all. It's just Chan that Sehyoon is less certain of.

Leaning out of the booth, Chan catches the eye of a waiter and orders for them, Byeongkwan inputting once to order some kind of fruity cocktail that comes with a ridiculous crazy-straw, and it’s not long before there’s a grill in front of them, tiny dishes of sides covering every available inch of the tabletop, Donghun flipping a generous helping of meat with a pair of tongs. 

He snaps them in the air to get their attention. “How’d you like it?”

“Blue,” Chan says.

Byeongkwan pulls a face. “Black.”

“And no doubt somewhere in the middle for Sehyoon,” Donghun sighs. Sehyoon winces and doesn’t bother telling him he’s right, though Donghun seems to cope pretty well considering the demand. When Byeongkwan complains about having to wait longer to eat, he even portions everything out on the grill, keeping a watchful eye on Sehyoon’s medium-rare and letting Byeongkwan’s serving all but catch fire before transferring them onto the other boy’s plate. Donghun seems to be the least picky, helping himself to portions from every section of the grill. Once, Sehyoon even sees him lift an uncooked piece of pork to his mouth and eat it raw.

Byeongkwan orders another drink and manages to convince Sehyoon to get one too. Donghun orders a whisky, and just as the waiter returns with the tray of glasses, someone’s phone starts buzzing.

Chan sighs and sets down his knife. “Excuse me,” he says, already pulling the phone from his pocket as he stands, and then disappears somewhere further into the restaurant, out of sight. Donghun goes on eating, Byeongkwan goes on drinking.

Sehyoon dabs his mouth with a napkin and excuses himself to go to the restroom. It’s only when he’s ducked inside a stall does he realise the voice echoing across the tile is Chan’s. 

“-then maybe I have a rule of always being the most obnoxious one at a party, and if it’s all of your Fae friends throwing it, there’s really no point in me being there.”

Sehyoon stifles a laugh. Chan’s clearly joking, his smooth voice drawling over every syllable, but it’s the sharpest thing he’s heard him say.

“Vampires?” It’s quiet as he listens to whatever the person on the other end of the line’s saying. “I don’t know. I’m with friends. Sure, I’ll think about it.”

There’s no goodbye, but there’s a sigh, and Sehyoon realises that now he’s hung up, Chan might go back to the table and be told he was in the bathroom too, and think he was eavesdropping. Which...he supposes he was. Accidentally. As accidental as hiding in a bathroom stall to hear the end of someone else’s conversation could be considered ‘accidental’.

_I should probably stop hiding, then._

He pushes the cubicle door open. Chan’s eyes fly up to meet his in the mirror, wide with surprise. There’s a moment of silence, and then, “Want to come to a party?”


	4. Bathtub

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (no, the bathtub is not a hint. that would be *waaay* too easy 😉 )

Byeongkwan had insisted on going home first to get ready- as if there was any way he could look more prepared for a party, when he was already glittering blue under the lights, laughing into a cocktail glass, saying “Oh good, we’ve already started predrinking!”- and so they’d split up, all of them, Chan going on ahead to find the place, Donghun with him, refusing to spend another minute watching Byeongkwan fuss over his hair. And Sehyoon had felt so hopelessly unprepared to spend the rest of the night with them, to brave a party where he’d have to keep pretending to fit in with people so infinitely more interesting than himself, that he’d panicked and said he needed time too, which only means that he’ll be showing up alone, following the directions Chan had sent him. He knocks on three wrong doors before he manages to find the right place. He instantly wishes he’d stuck around until Byeongkwan was ready. 

Alone, he can barely manage to convince himself to step into the room crawling with other bodies, all pressed close together, some swaying with the music pounding through the floorboards, some merrily yelling, screams of laughter audible over the heavy r&b- at least the music’s better than he’d expected it to be. It’s not at a college dorm room either, like he’d expected, but an actual loft, the living room he steps into _actually_ a living room, with two sofas shoved against both walls and a separate kitchen area at the back, no dining room table in sight, no horrible whitewashed walls or threadbare carpet. The kitchen’s quieter, almost bearable, so he hurtles past the dancers and up against one of the counters, steadfastly ignoring the couple by the fridge who look like they’re trying to devour each other and casting his eyes around the dancers, the laughing groups, the few stragglers like himself. He can’t see anyone he recognises, bar a few girls from his classes that he’s never talked to before, and he’s starting to seriously consider the possibility of running away and pretending he had been too lost to find the party when Chan comes careening around a corner with a group of students, from what must be a bedroom.

“Sehyoon!” he calls, from the other side of the kitchen, beckoning with a hand, and Sehyoon’s so nonplussed by the fact that he looks exactly the same as he always does, beige blazer and wide grin, that he steps up to the younger boy instinctively. He had known Chan was going on ahead to greet the host- because he seemed to be the only one of the four of them who actually knows who that is- but he’d somehow expected him to be different, under the dim lights with the music crashing over them, a drink held lightly in his hand, and had instead been faced with the same boy who’d sat in front of him in class for a week now, smiling but not particularly arresting, not in the same way Byeongkwan or even Donghun are. So why can’t he seem to say no to Chan? Why can’t he- and, come to think of it, everyone currently around them- not take his eyes off of him?

“Has Byeongkwan arrived yet?”

“I don’t think so,” Sehyoon says lamely, and has to repeat himself, louder, to be heard over the music.

“Donghun had a few more drinks,” Chan yells back at him, leaning close to his ear, “he told me he was going to the restroom about a half hour ago.”

“You want me to go check on him?”

“That would be good of you,” Chan smiles, but the way he gratefully squeezes Sehyoon’s arm as he says it shows that it’s what he’d wanted, even if he hadn’t directly asked.

Sehyoon nods and excuses himself. Someone is already pulling Chan back into conversation when he turns around, about to ask for directions, and he decides instead just to wander until he can find his destination. He steps into two bedrooms- one a rather more awkward experience than the other- before walking to the end of one corridor and seeing a door lying open. Donghun waves at him from within, an almost empty bottle in his hand, lying down in the bathtub in his nice waistcoat, though his jacket has been misplaced somewhere, and his long hair has been tied in a messy knot.

Sehyoon laughs before he can help himself and steps inside. “Should you be in here?”

“You and your rules!” the wolf groans. When Sehyoon laughs again, sliding down the wall into a crouch, he lifts his head, expression turning sly. “Don’t you want to get in here with me?”

Sehyoon raises a brow. “You realise there’s no water in there, right?”

Frowning, Donghun drops his chin lazily to his chest, looking down at his legs and the many empty red cups that have been thrown into the bathtub beside them. Clearly, he hadn’t realised. There's an earthy, saccharine smell in the air that might explain that. 

Another realisation comes to the wolf suddenly, too, as he looks back over to Sehyoon against the wall. “You don’t have a drink,” he says, as if it were a terrible pity, and passes the bottle he'd been clutching into Sehyoon’s unwilling hand.

He supposes it’s better than letting Donghun finish it by himself, so Sehyoon takes a tentative sip, feeling whatever it is burn the back of his throat, not unpleasantly. He takes another.

“Is Bee here yet?” Donghun asks. His face is blissed, loose-featured in a way that makes it obvious just how many of those red cups had belonged to him, before he’d started on the bottle Sehyoon’s now holding.

“He wasn’t, when I came to find you,” Sehyoon tells him. He shrugs, takes another swig, and adds, “Chan’ll tell him where we are.”

For some reason, this makes Donghun laugh. He mumbles something that might be the boy’s name, but is too quiet and slurred for Sehyoon to make out. “What?”

The wolf grins and twists around to rest his chin against the side of the tub, coming closer. “Don’t you think he’s very funny?”

Sehyoon squints at him, vaguely endeared by his drunken nonsense. “How so?”

“With all of his suits, and the way he talks.”

The ground has started swaying ever so slightly. Sehyoon drops all the way to the floor, squeezing himself between the tub and the wall, boots kicked up against the side of the bath. He shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

With surprisingly sober slyness, Donghun’s smile grows. “I think you do.”

_Am I really such an open book, that he can read me even now?_

“Did you see him on your way in?” Sehyoon nods, the looseness in his limbs hitting him suddenly, as his head drops with too much force and a dull pain shoots up his neck. Donghun laughs at him, through his teeth, and then asks, “What was he up to?”

“Just-” Sehyoon bats a hand through the air, struggling, frowning deep as he searches for the words. The swig he takes from the alarmingly light bottle doesn’t help like he’d wanted it to.

“Charming the masses?” Donghun suggests, and Sehyoon’s dumbfounded, but nods. In theory, he knows the alcohol and the drugs take more of a toll on him, with his half-human side, than anyone else at the party, but even still, Donghun must be exceptionally good at holding his liquor if he's still so lucid. Exceptionally practised. “Thought so. You started wondering what he is yet?”

This time, the swig Sehyoon takes is a nervous one, too large, and the burn at the back of his throat sets him coughing. “He’s not human?” he splutters, red-faced, and the wolf snatches the bottle back with a roll of his eyes.

“You don’t have very good instincts do you, halfling?”

Sehyoon tuts, affecting an irritated frown, though the insult had sounded more like a term of endearment than anything. “Alright,” he admits. “I guess I had thought about it, a little.”

“And?” Donghun prompts, completely unsurprised. Even in the state he’s in, he seems so effortlessly ahead of the game, ahead of Sehyoon, as if there’s something he expects him to say and will keep prodding until he gets it. It makes Sehyoon self-conscious, and yet he can’t deny that it also raises the instinct to do better, to meet the challenge, and if it’s annoying, it’s only annoying because he knows even now that he’s being intentionally difficult, Donghun is still fun, not uncertain of himself, not unkind. 

“What is this?” Sehyoon asks, eyes narrowed. He wants to understand too, to be one step ahead, and Donghun raises a brow as if he notices the swerve, the avoidance of his question. “I thought the three of you got along alright.”

The wolf smirks. “Oh, we get along _grand,_ Sehyoon.”

“So what’re you trying to do?” 

_What do you want me to say?_ Maybe if he’d ask more plainly, Donghun would tell him, how to keep their attention, when Sehyoon has been constantly afraid of it slipping away. If he can’t give Donghun the answer he wants, will it go back to the way it was, sitting a row apart, pretending not to notice each other?

But Donghun answers him with another question, and he’s left to scramble again. “You like him, don’t you?”

Sehyoon shrugs helplessly. “Everyone likes him.”

Donghun snaps his fingers in the air, ending the gesture in a point, directed to Sehyoon. “And there it is.”

This is where Donghun had been trying to lead him? 

“I’m not supposed to like him?” Sehyoon asks, puzzled, and Donghun shakes his head.

“ _Why_ do you like him?” he prompts.

Sehyoon’s never actually thought about that before. The only time he’d ever interacted with Chan before tonight had been when he’d delivered Donghun’s lighter, and there hadn’t been much of a conversation, much indication as to what was going on in the plain boy’s head when he’d answered the door and saw Sehyoon standing awkwardly before him.

His mouth opens and closes for a moment. “Well, I suppose- I, well, I just do.” Donghun snickers at his answer, and there it is again, the feeling that he’s not saying the right thing, and impatiently, Sehyoon fires back, “Why do _you_ like him?”

Easily, instantly, Donghun says, “Because he’s very funny.”

“There you go again with that,” Sehyoon sighs. “ _Funny_. Am I funny too?”

“The funniest,” Donghun says, with relish.

His vague irritation goes away as quickly as it had arrived, and Sehyoon laughs softly. “I’ll take that as a very twisted compliment.”

Donghun looks up at the ceiling, reflective. “I think you’re funny when you’re with us,” he says slowly. “I like how you look at Chan sometimes.”

Sehyoon frowns. “How’s that?”

“Like you’re trying to see through him.”

Sehyoon blinks at him, awed. He hadn’t thought anyone would notice. “I...he makes me nervous,” he admits, and, seeing Donghun’s eyes flash, and feeling suddenly embarrassed by the honest admission, shrugs and adds, “I guess.”

Donghun snorts, cradling the now-empty glass bottle to his chest like a babe. “You guess, do you?”

There’s amusement in his voice, but not meanness, and in fact the way he’s looking down at Sehyoon sitting on the tile below him is somewhat tender, so the hafling laughs begrudgingly, self-deprecating, and decides sincerity might not be so embarrassing after all, especially with the very real chance that Donghun will remember none of it tomorrow.

“I haven’t had many friends like him,” he confesses. He thinks of Donghun’s quick, sharp grins, Byeongkwan’s electric laugh, Chan’s easy going amiability, how they seem to light up rooms with no effort, drag the dregs of his moods up high without seemingly trying. “Like any of you.” He panics in the silence that follows, thinking he might have said too much, and now Donghun will say _friends?_ as if the idea had never occurred to him, and the interest they’d started showing him would slip away. But Donghun doesn’t say anything, and when Sehyoon glances across at him nervously, he’s smiling.

“Why did you invite me?” Sehyoon asks. “To dinner. Here.”

Donghun laughs as if he’d told a joke. “We like you,” he shrugs. “What other reason is there?”

 _We_ . Not just Byeongkwan, not just Donghun, _we_. 

He can’t bring himself to believe it, though he wants to more than anything. “There’s really nothing?”

Donghun frowns. “Are you one of those nice boys that have deep, dark secrets?”

“No,” Sehyoon laughs. For some reason- that very well might be his _own_ drunken nonsense- the question makes him believe it more, that people like them might choose to spend their time with him, the sudden realisation that Donghun knows just as little about him as he knows about the others. Donghun thinks he could have dark secrets, might be something more than what’s clear from the surface. It’s flattering, in it’s own strange way, and alleviates the pressure to rise to every challenge, to have the perfect thing to say all the time.

“Good,” Donghun’s sighing, slipping away to lie back in the bath, stretched out. Plastic cups crunch. “I’m too drunk for any more confessions.”

The silence that settles is more comfortable, the party outside background noise, distant shouts and cheers and music, and Sehyoon stops worrying so much about what the silence might mean and sits in it a while, watching Donghun drain the shallow remnants of the bottle.

And then he gives in, and clears his throat to break the quiet. “So...about Chan-”

“I knew you were thinking about it,” Donghun laughs.

He had been, ever since Donghun had mentioned it- before, even, in the kitchen, when he’d realised his eyes were always drawn to the plain boy and everyone else seemed to experience the same reaction, too. 

Donghun raises a finger to his lips as if shushing himself, and Sehyoon scoffs.“You’re really not going to tell me?”

“Why should I?” Donghun chuckles. His eyes glisten with mirth as he studies Sehyoon’s expression. “It’ll be way more fun seeing you work it out on your own.”

“Stop laughing,” Sehyoon tells him, but it doesn’t sound very threatening, because he’s trying to keep the laughter from his voice too, and not entirely succeeding.

Donghun smirks, tossing aside the bottle he’d been cradling. “You don’t want me laughing?” he asks, and Sehyoon’s startled for a moment by the lucidity in his voice, as if he’d just been pretending drunkenness, and startled even more when the wolf leans forward, half out of the tub, and hooks his collar with a fingertip, dragging him forward. He freezes, wide eyed, as Donghun’s smirking face hovers inches from his own.

“Stop playing around,” he laughs, but it’s breathy, and only makes Donghun smile wider.

“Don’t you want to have a good time?”

Sehyoon isn’t sure whether he feels more nervous or exhilarated. The alcohol isn’t helping- he should move away, almost wants to, but he doesn’t, just stays where he is, and says, “Really, knock it off. What would Byeongkwan think if he walked in now?”

They’re so close that as Donghun laughs, Sehyoon can feel his breath on his face, and his voice ghosts over his lips as he whispers, “Why don’t you ask him?”

Sehyoon tears himself away to see Byeongkwan grinning at him from the doorway, resting against the frame, head tipped to the side. “Having fun?”


	5. Sharing Butterflies

_Shit._

“I didn’t-”

"I couldn’t find you anywhere,” Byeongkwan sighs, and with a dulled sense of surprise Sehyoon realises he’s talking to them both, frowning at them both in turn, as he shuts the door. He’s struck with the image of Byeongkwan striding through the party, eyes flickering every which way, not only looking for Donghun or Chan, but for him too, disappointed that he can’t see them, frustrated with every room he doesn’t find them in. How quickly he’d become part of their little group of misfits. 

“You look nice,” he says suddenly. Both of them turn to stare at him.

Byeongkwan bursts into bright laughter. “You’re red as a cherry, Sehyoon.” And then, as he drops onto the edge of the tub, he gives him a pleased wink. “You really think so?”

The only response Sehyoon deems not crushingly embarrassing is an enthusiastic nod. Byeongkwan had changed out of his jeans and jacket, no longer glittering under the fluorescence, replacing them with dark leather trousers and a nirvana tank, cut low at the sides to expose his ribs. There’s a long sleeved shirt underneath, gaudy, sheer silver fabric with a blue sheen that matches the butterfly clips Sehyoon releases, very happily, he’d kept in his hair.

“What are you doing in the bathtub, precious?” Byeongkwan’s asking, prodding one of Donghun’s legs where it’s sticking out of the tub beside him, and the wolf smiles up at him beatifically, so softly after all of his sharp teasing that Sehyoon suddenly feels as if he shouldn’t be here.

“I’m drinking,” he says, wiggling the empty bottle, as if that at all could answer Byeongkwan’s question. The sprite just laughs, and for the first time Sehyoon notices he’s also holding a drink, something in a red plastic cup identical to the half-dozen littering the bathtub around Donghun.

“I’m pretty sure someone slipped something in my drink,” Byeongkwan says, and though Sehyoon can feel his eyes about to burst from their sockets, the way he says it is so unbothered, as he settles back further against a tiled wall, and Donghun just hums and grabs the little plastic cup from him, gulping it down like a man dying of thirst.

He smacks his lips together a few times, dropping the empty cup into the bathtub next to the others, signs of enough drink to give a human alcohol poisoning, or to make for a very buzzed wolf. "Yup."

Even at this, Byeongkwan’s unperturbed. "Chan’s not with you?" he asks, glancing at both of them.

Donghun seems to have a far easier time with getting his drunken tongue to form words. "Last I saw him, he was with a bunch of vamps," he shrugs. Then he seems to find something funny, barking a laugh that echoes around the tiny, tiled space. “Could he be any more obvious?”

Sehyoon frowns, though Byeongkwan doesn’t seem to have heard the last part. "And you just _left_ him?" the sprite cries.

Donghun giggles and throws up his hands. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Grumbling, Byeongkwan struggles back to his feet. "How high are you?"

Donghun reaches for him, grinning, and catches him around the middle. "Not high enough."

Byeongkwan hits his hands away with a roll of his eyes. "I'm sure whatever you just drank will solve that pretty quickly,” he mutters, and then louder, to the room, “Come on, we're leaving."

Sehyoon looks up suddenly as if caught doing something he shouldn’t be. "We are?"

“You only just got here,” Donghun opposes.

“And I’m bored of the place already,” Byeongkwan says airly. “Too many bodies. Come on, let's go back to our room.”

Sehyoon thinks perhaps there might be a little disappointment in Byeongkwan’s face that he’s trying to hide, as if he really does want to stay, but he seems determined, regardless, to get Donghun up out of the bathtub, avoiding all of the wolf’s clumsy attempts to grab him.

“Little help?” he asks, and Sehyoon jolts to his feet so quickly he has to immediately freeze again, as a wave of nausea hits him. It passes quickly, and he accepts the arm Donghun very graciously holds out to him and heaves, and between the two of them, they manage to wrestle the wolf to his feet and out through the door. 

“Chan?” Sehyoon yells, just his name, but Byeongkwan shakes his head, pushing through the crowds, and Sehyoon, bearing most of Donghun’s weight, has no choice but to follow,

“We’ll phone him from our room,” Byeongkwan explains, when they’re finally out of the flat, and from there it’s a long struggle down flights of stairs, where Donghun hollers drunkenly and runs out of their grasp more than once, but eventually they all topple together onto a wide double bed, Byeongkwan and Sehyoon groaning with relief, Donghun groaning with joy, curling up against the duvet.

“Idiot,” Byeongkwan sigh, staring up at the ceiling, and Sehyoon laughs before he can help it. The sprite must not be very mad, because he laughs too, stretched out on his back, letting Donghun throw one leg over his own. 

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to enjoy the party,” Sehyoon tells him, and the sprite turns toward him, laughing softly.

“You’re slurring your words,” he says, completely unaffected, himself, by the pre-drinks and whatever he’d already drank at the party before he’d found them.

Sehyoon might envy him for that, too, if he wasn’t so pleasantly numb, if he wasn’t so stupidly happy because one of Donghun’s arms is curled loosely around his neck. “Couldn’t have him finish the bottle by himself,” he mumbles.

Byeongkwan shakes his head, smiling softly. Donghun pulls the sprite closer, and Byeongkwan, now in reaching distance, slides a butterfly from his hair and clips it in Sehyoon’s. Sehyoon laughs, quietly, as Byeongkwan settles back down looking immensely proud of himself. He opens his mouth to say something, and even before he speaks Sehyoon’s shy, avoiding the look in Byeongkwan’s pretty eyes- startled out of his shyness very suddenly, too, as the door slams open, crashing against the wall.

Byeongkwan leaps to his feet, somehow still managing to make it look graceful despite all the drink and tiredness and the fact that Donghun had been curled around him, too. Sehyoon’s slower, struggling to sit up, but when he does, he can see that the sudden arrival is only Chan. A dishevelled, drunken Chan, but still, only Chan.

Byeongkwan yelps as the younger boy falls onto him. “What happened to you?” he asks, voice high with surprise, maneuvering them both so he can kick the door closed. Chan almost topples face-first onto the carpet, but manages to catch himself on his knees before he falls, and Byeongkwan pulls him to his feet again just long enough to get him to lie down on the bed, where Sehyoon had managed to get Donghun to sit back against the pillows to make room.

"Some vamp bit me,” Chan says, as he lets himself drop.

Byeongkwan snorts. “You’ve had too much to drink, Chan. They won't have bit you.”

Chan winds a hand through the air, staring at his fingers as he wiggles them in front of his face. “They sure did something,” he breathes, “ I can hardly feel my legs. I thought bites were supposed to be painless.” 

Sehyoon and Byeongkwan glance at each other, confused, wearing matching frowns. Byeongkwan steps up to where Chan’s lying with his feet touching the floor.

“Let me see,” he says, leaning over the younger boy and tilting his head to the side.

“Get off,” Chan whines, trying to wriggle away.

“Stop,” Byeongkwan says, sharply enough that Sehyoon’s stomach turns. “I want to see the bite.”

Chan shoves him again, even weaker this time, and Byeongkwan easily grabs his hand as it flies through the air. Chan mutters sleepily, “It’s fine.”

But Byeongkwan had glimpsed something, and now he looks stricken, eyes too wide, voice hollow. Sehyoon had saw it too, the little red line on Chan's neck, but only for a second, and he doesn't understand Byeongkwan's reaction until the sprite is saying, “Chan, that’s not a bite.”

One of Chan’s hands flies to the mark on his neck. “What? But I felt-”

“That’s not a bite, it’s a _scratch_.”

Chan frowns, and Byeongkwan bats his arm away from his neck, leaning closer. Chan gasps as a fingertip ghosts over the mark, inflamed and scarlet at the crook of his neck, and pushes the sprite away with enough force to send Byeongkwan stumbling.

“Hurts,” he mumbles. Byeongkwan ignores him, rushing back to the bed, taking Chan's hand again before it can swing at him. His fingers deftly work open the top few buttons of Chan’s shirt. The younger boy giggles, reaching out with his free hand to grab Byeongkwan’s. The sprite stops, looking down with wide eyes, his voice crisp with seriousness, loud in the sudden quiet of the room. “Chan, where did they bite you?”

The only answer he receives is a low groan, and Chan’s face is pinched, eyes squeezed shut. He hisses through his teeth, and Byeongkwan’s searching gets more frantic, no longer trying to be gentle as he turns Chan’s neck, pulls down his collar. "You're sure it was a vampire?"

Even Donghun’s watching now, with dazed eyes, and Sehyoon hovers uselessly behind Byeongkwan, too drunk himself to understand, sober enough to pick up on the urgency in Byeongkwan’s movements as Chan tosses and turns and doesn't answer his question.

“What’s going on?” Sehyoon asks, and winces at how loud his own voice sounds in the silence.

Byeongkwan spins and grabs him quickly by the shoulders, as serious as he’d ever seen him, words coming fast and clear. “Your friend, the one we bumped into before dinner, do you know his room number?”

Sehyoon blinks at him, trying to kick his drunken brain into faster motion. It feels like the worst possible moment for the lie to catch up to him. “I-”

There’s a sudden sharp crack, and both of them jump. Donghun is on his feet, standing over Chan, hand still raised in the air from striking him across the face.

Chan groans, cradling his cheek, blinking slowly.

“The vamp,” Donghun yells, hovering above him. “His room number.”

Chan groans again, eyes slipping shut, and Donghun shakes him harshly, grabbing his face in both hands. “ _Chan,_ the number _._ ”

“121,” Chan gasps.

Byeongkwan turns back to Sehyoon and pushes him toward the door. “Go, bring him here.”

“You think he’ll come with me?”

“You’re the only one who even knows him!” The sprite cries, and of course, he’s right, he _should_ be right, and it's all Sehyoon’s fault for telling the lie, pretending to know just one person outside of this group, and he has no one to blame but himself.

He’s shoved out through the door, but just as Byeongkwan starts to close it, Sehyoon spins in the doorway and puts a hand on the frame, stopping the door from closing. “What’s going on?”

The sprite looks for a minute like he’s going to say something, some softer kind of explanation, but then he’s pushing him away. “Go find the vampire.”

The door slams in his face.

He’s drunk and guilty and scared of another door slamming in his face, but _more_ scared about Chan lying motionless on the bed, eyes slipping closed, so he rushes down flights of stairs as quickly as his tired legs with take him, racing through a corridor, stopping only when he gets to a door marked 121, slamming his palm against it loud enough to wake the dead. There’s no noise from inside, so he tries again, just as firm, and is starting to worry that the vampire’s still with a friend, or out running and not in his room, when the door’s thrown open.

Jun scowls at him, mouth already open to say something cutting. Sehyoon breathlessly cuts in before he can say it.

“I need your help.”

The vampire stares at him blankly. There’s a tumbler in his hand, half-full of amber liquid, though there are no voices coming from inside his room, and the camouflage sweatpants and plain white shirt he’s wearing look worn.

“I’m busy,” he says.

Sehyoon scoffs, trying to catch his breath. “Getting wasted in your pyjamas?” Surprise flashes across the vampire’s customary dark look, and Sehyoon’s just as surprised with himself, but he can’t slow down when they’re wasting time just standing here arguing. “Really, please, one of my friends, we were at a party and one of the vampires bit them-scratched them-”

“Which one is it?” Jun asks suddenly.

“What?”

Jun rolls his eyes and shakes his head at the same time, as if doing only one wouldn’t compute how completely incompetent Sehyoon is. “Is it a bite or a scratch?”

“Scratch-"

Jun frowns. "From a vampire?"

Sehyoon's panic-muddled brain replays Byeongkwan's questioning in the back of his mind. "I- I don't think so, they told me to find you-” the explanation dies as Junhee shoves him backwards, and Sehyoon bites his tongue as he stumbles. Whatever plea or insult he might have said next doesn’t come, because Jun’s turning, closing his door and starting down the corridor without looking back.

“What room?”


	6. Bad Blood

“You didn’t tell me it was _him_ ,” Jun says, when they’re all standing around the bed, a hard look in his eyes as he stares down at Chan’s pale face.

Donghun’s low voice is close to a growl. “Can you help him or not?”

Byeongkwan’s still at Chan’s side, kneeling on the bed by his head now, cradling one of the younger boy’s hands in both of his own. The sprite’s pale, the blue shadow on his eyes standing out against the anxious pallor of his skin like a bruise, and Junhee sees the nerves and near-tears in his eyes, and sighs. He gets down on his knees to bring his line of sight closer to Chan’s neck.

“Is it what I think it is?” Byeongkwan asks.

Though he’d clearly been wanting a _no_ , Junhee wastes no time in nodding. “Your dumb friend managed to get himself scratched by a ghoul.”

“Can you-”

Junhee rolls his eyes, voice dark and dry as it always is, seemingly unaffected by the urgent atmosphere. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, I won’t let him die on you.”

_Die?_

Sehyoon pulls Donghun’s arm and leans closer to the wolf’s side. “What’s going on?”

For a moment, it seems as if Donghun hadn’t even heard his whisper, but then he glances up, and takes pity as he sees Sehyoon’s nonplussed, agitated expression. 

“Ghouls scratch victims before they feed,” he explains. “The venom...it’ll paralyse him, and in the state he’s in...” he trails off, shaking his head. “We need to get it out of him before we find out what it could do, but there’s too much for us. This way might help stop the pain, too.”

“ _Out_ ,” Sehyoon echoes, hollowly, and he’s about to ask what that means when Junhee catches his attention, moving finally. Byeongkwan tips Chan’s head gently to the side, and the vampire’s lips latch around the ugly, raised gash on Chan’s neck. Just as quickly, though, he’s tearing himself away, spluttering. Blood splatters the carpet as he coughs, doubled over, the temporary calm that had settled on Chan’s face fracturing too, letting in the pained gasps again.

“You-” Junhee’s voice is harsh with coughing, and he splutters again, wiping a hand on his mouth and smearing blood across his skin, eyes blown wide. “You should have told me he’s-”

Donghun catches him by the collar and pulls so he’s kneeling again, not gently. “Can you do it or not?” he snarls, impatient, as Junhee glowers up at him. 

“Please,” Byeongkwan says, the pacifier. “No one else will get here on time.”

Junhee sighs again, but it’s an angry sound now, rasping and strange, his lips scarlet. “You really think I’m going to do this in a room full of strangers?”

Donghun crosses his arms. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“That might be a little more intimidating if you could walk straight, alpha.”

“There’s no time for arguments,” Byeongkwan scolds them, voice urgent again, and they all look back to the bed to see Chan writhing, both of his hands in Byeongkwan’s now, the pained gasps getting louder, turning to whines, air hissing through clenched teeth.

There’s a horrible moment of silence as they all watch him, doing nothing, and Sehyoon’s stomach turns. Jun sits back on his heels, swiping a hand over his face.

“Oh, for fu-” he leans forward, not finishing the curse, lips closing around the mark again. Sehyoon can hear Byeongkwan letting out a shaky breath, feels Donghun’s hand find the back of his jacket, trembling. Almost instantly, Chan’s whining stops, the pain leaving his face as if it was never there to begin with. He tries to turn, toward Junhee, and Byeongkwan has to push him down, though the vampire doesn’t seem to notice. There’s no sound except shallow breathing getting deeper, but it’s so obvious what’s happening that Sehyoon feels oddly uncomfortable, his cheeks hot, and he can’t stop remembering Junhee’s insistence that they leave. He feels like he shouldn’t be watching, even if all he can see is the back of Junhee’s head. It takes longer than he’d thought it would, so much longer that he begins to worry, but then Junhee’s pulling away, and Chan’s eyes flicker open, dazed and heavy, but clearer than they’d been before. Absently, he touches his neck- the scratch isn’t raised and ugly anymore, just a tiny, barely noticeable pink line across pale skin, already soothed and healing. Byeongkwan lets go of him with a huge sigh of relief.

Junhee stands, and Chan seems to notice him for the first time, just as the vampire turns and starts shakily towards the bathroom.

“Junhee.” It’s little more than air, Chan’s voice weak and tired, so differently from it’s usual smooth melody, but it still makes the vampire spin. “Thank you.”

“I told you it was Jun,” Junhee says, and then he steps into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Chan laughs and closes his eyes.

Subconsciously, Byeongkwan’s hands flatten the younger boy’s hair in gentle pats. “How do you feel?”

Chan purses his lips, opens his eyes just to squint up at the ceiling. “Great,” he says, and then, “terrible. A weird mix of both.”

“D’you remember what happened?”

“Just the pain.” Chan tries to rise, but can’t quite manage until Byengkwan notices his floundering, and gives him a push. “And then the-” he waves a hand toward the bathroom, where the sound of a faucet has started running.

With a sigh, Donghun uncrosses his arms, taking a small step closer to the bed so he can reach over and slap the top of Chan’s head gently. “Idiot,” he tuts. “You should have been more careful.”

Chan pouts up at him sourly, but without any real feeling. “Like _you_ can talk about being careful,” he mutters, and Byeongkwan only laughs, when Donghun looks at him for support.

“He has a point,” Sehyoon reasons, and Donghun turns back to him, betrayed, and jumps at him, wrestling an arm around his neck as Sehyoon screeches a laugh, trying to break free. The bathroom door opens.

Both of them turn toward the sound, but there’s enough time between that and the moment Donghun lets him go for Sehyoon to look up and see Junhee staring back at him, brow furrowed with disapproval. _Well_ , Sehyoon thinks, _that’s nothing new_.

“Thank you,” Byeongkwan says, tumbling off of the bed. “Again.”

They all seem equally surprised when Junhee doesn’t immediately turn around and leave. He’d cleaned the blood from his face, and the feed has added more color to his cheeks, made every feature stand out even more strikingly than before, so he looks younger and sharper at once. Even more surprising than his staying, his eyes pass over them all, and land on Chan.

“Did I take too much?” It’s the first near-nice thing Sehyoon thinks he’s ever said to any of them.

“I’ll survive,” Chan says, raising one shoulder, looking just as startled to see Junhee’s eyes on him. “Although, since I’m assuming a drink is off of the cards-” he glances at Byeongkwan as if for permission, who gives him a thunderous look “-then perhaps fresh air might be in order.”

Not even a second passes before Donghun’s suggesting, “We could go to the rooftop.”

“Will you two ever be high enough?” Byeongkwan sighs.

Someone snickers.

Sehyoon looks up, wide-eyed. “Did you just _laugh_?”

Junhee scowls at him, and Sehyoon tries his best not to shrink in on himself, even when Junhee's eyes flicker upwards and he remembers the butterfly clip is still in his hair. He scrambles to unclasp it and shove it in a pocket, feeling ridiculous. The vampire's already turning to Byeongkwan, brow quirked. “You can get on the roof?”

Byeongkwan laughs shortly, wiggling his fingers in the air. “ _I_ can,” he says slyly, and Junhee gives him something close to a smile. Small and barely noticeable, but even still, it feels like something changing.

Donghun doesn’t notice, already far too excited about his plan actually being accepted. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go get you that fresh air.”

They’re halfway up the last staircase when Sehyoon realises Jun is panting. The vampire’s right at his heels, keeping pace with ease, the same disinterest on his face that’s always there, when Sehyoon risks a glance over his shoulder. They make it out onto the rooftop with a little assistance from Byeongkwan, who sets a hand gently on the door handle, a subtle cherry-sweet scent chased quickly away with the breeze as the rusted locks Sehyoon hadn’t considered before click open under his touch, and then they’re through. The only other time he’d been on the rooftop, with Donghun, the door had already been lying open, and he hadn’t really questioned how it had gotten like that. When Byeongkwan makes a promise to lock it again behind them, as if they’d never been there, he understands.

Donghun captures Sehyoon around the shoulders as they walk to the barrier. “Can you do that too?”

“Uh, no,” Sehyoon laughs nervously. “Nymphs are more elemental and, well, I’m really only half-”

A jolly cry interrupts his stuttering- Byeongkwan, calling, “Lee Donghun if you take one more step toward that ledge you’ll be sleeping on the floor for a month!”

Donghun grumbles, but stops. Sehyoon, in his panic to say the right thing, hadn’t noticed how far Donghun had been steering him over the rooftop, the cold metal of the barrier now at arm’s reach.

He turns back around on time to see Byeongkwan and Chan land in an ungraceful heap on the asphalt, Byeongkwan dropping Chan’s weight too quickly, sending them hard onto the ground. Chan groans, and Byeongkwan curses enthusiastically. Donghun chuckles at them both.

“You’re luck there’re no classes tomorrow,” Sehyoon tells them, giving Chan a pitying smile when the younger boy pouts up at him.

“We’re not all such model students, you know,” Donghun says, as he sits at Chan’s other side. He gives the boy a gentle nudge, still grinning up at Sehyoon as he asks, “What d’you think it would take to convince him to skip with us?”

Byeongkwan rolls his eyes, and Chan breathes a weak laugh and starts to answer, but Sehyoon’s not really paying attention anymore, because Jun is stepping past him, gripping the barrier a few feet to his left and staring out at the blackness around them. For a moment, Sehyoon hesitates, but then settles back against the barrier, the cold numbed with the alcohol and relief still buzzing around his system, so he can see Jun in his peripheral, facing the group of three cross-legged on the asphalt beneath him.

They joke around for a while, Jun a constant, silent presence just outside their bubble, before Byeongkwan seems to remember he’s there, and leans to the side. “Hey,” he calls, “are you ever going to come over here, or are you just going to keep pretend you didn’t come here with us forever?”

Jun doesn’t reply, but Sehyoon gets the feeling that he’s not the only one who’d been expecting this. Sehyoon had given up, after a few jokes hadn’t drawn the vampire in, and settled down beside Donghun, who’d put his head on his shoulder and effectively stopped him from ever wanting to move again.

Now, Sehyoon turns his face closer to the top of the wolf's head, and lowers his voice. “Is he going to be OK? With the-”

“He’s already dead, Yoon,” Donghun laughs, bumping his shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry.”

“He can also hear everything you’re saying,” a voice calls from the barrier. Both of them look up to see Jun staring back at them, unamused, though not glaring as darkly as he usually does. “And he’s been through worse.”

Chan flashes a grin, his head tipped drunkenly to the side, and gasps, “He speaks!”

The effects of the scratch, and then the vampire bite, haven’t faded much, and Chan now appears the drunkest of them all, though he seems more of a quiet drunk than a crazy one, happily blissed-out, content to sit back and let the rest of them do most of the talking.

Sehyoon thinks he catches Jun shaking his head in the darkness. He doesn’t rise to the joke, just goes on staring out over the roof, and falls silent again. This silence is worse than before, though, because now Sehyoon’s left with the echo of Jun’s voice, to wonder what _worse things_ he’s talking about. He has never met a vampire before. He’s never thought about Jun as someone else’s design, never thought about the _before_ , whether all of the dark moods and silences and cutting words might not have always been there. He doesn’t want to think about it, especially not in the state he’s in. Donghun’s head is a welcome weight on his shoulder. If the others are wondering about Jun too, they don’t let it show, not until Donghun’s head lifts and he goes silent, too.

He turns to look at Jun behind him, frowning. Just as Sehyoon’s about to ask what’s wrong, he says, “Hey bud, are you alright?”

It’s a startling question, too careful for Donghun’s usual bluntness, too kind toward a boy he usually ignores as steadfastly as Jun ignores him, and it gets all of their attention, fast. Chan’s frowning, too, and Sehyoon follows his line of sight straight to Jun and realises with a start that the vampire’s knuckles are white against the metal barrier, his mouth partly open.

“I’m fine.”

Byeongkwan looks just as lost as Sehyoon feels, when the silence falls again, and as soon as they turn back into their little group, he leans toward Donghun. “What is it?”

“Pain,” he says, turning back to look over his shoulder. “Lots of it- look, are you sure you’re alright?”

Jun doesn’t say anything this time, and Sehyoon’s heartbeat jolts, seeing the angry set of his jaw, the now audible sound of his breathing, shallow just like it had been when they were climbing the stairs to the roof. “It’s not the venom-”

“Of course not,” Jun snaps.

Donghun glances doubtfully at Byeongkwan, brows furrowed, and slowly gets to his feet, approaching Junhee as if he were a caged animal. “Maybe you should sit down a minute-”

Jun growls, “I told you I was fine, didn’t I?”

But he’s not, and it must be serious, because his gaze burns into a spot of the darkness so intensely that he doesn’t realise two of them are approaching, doesn’t move even when Chan gets to his side, only jolting when a hand lands on his bare arm.

“ _Don’t-”_

“I can help,” Chan says.

Jun’s expression twists, and the fight starts to go out of him as he slides his back down the barrier, breath shallow, and now that he no longer has his back to them they can all see the hand plastered to his chest, right over his heart.

Donghun, at his other side, stares down at it, stricken. For a moment the only sound is Junhee's ragged breathing, and then the wolf, gently, asks, “How long has it been since you turned?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Jun hisses, so fiercely Donghun steps back, though it only confirms this question. 

“Please,” Chan says, dropping into a crouch, and Sehyoon’s startled by the softness of his voice, “let me help.”

But Junhee shrinks away from the hands that reach for him, glowering. “It’ll pass,” he says, “it always does.”

Chan sighs. “Junhee-”

“I told you it was Jun,” Junhee snarls. He takes his hand away from his chest, releasing a shaky, shallow breath, and then he’s pulling himself back to his feet, leaning heavily against the barrier, and Sehyoon can see a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead, dampening the edges of his dark hair. They stare at him, silent as if their roles have been reversed suddenly, the group that’s usually shrieking with laughter now quiet, Junhee glancing around at them all in turn and letting out a sharp, airy laugh, surprising them all by stepping forward, shuffling a little but steady, and lowering himself onto the asphalt beside Sehyoon.

“Stop staring, freak.”

Sehyoon and Byeongkwan share a bewildered look. Dazed, Donghun and Chan sit back down too. 

Junhee’s eyes pass over them all again. “You’re a strange group.” His eyes travel to Donghun, and he raises a brow, still somehow managing to look bored and disinterested as he asks, “Shouldn’t you be in a pack?”

Donghun scoffs derisively. “Cults aren’t really my thing.”

Sehyoon tries not to wince too obviously. Junhee doesn’t react. He’s no different now he’s sitting amongst them, no softer, and Sehyoon has to actively fight the urge to edge away. Byeongkwan is looking at him, and maybe there really is nothing to the gaze, but it makes Sehyoon nervous anyway. He’d told the sprite he doesn’t know Junhee, doesn’t know anyone here, but Byeongkwan seems to have misinterpreted that as not knowing him _very well_ , which Sehyoon guesses is his own fault. If he’d stopped trying to appear different than he is whenever Donghun strikes up a conversation, he’d just have admitted that he doesn’t know the vampire any better than the rest of them. But then Byeongkwan had shoved him out the door and Junhee had followed Sehyoon back to their room, and now it really _must_ look like there’s something between them that there isn’t. Just an acquaintance, but it feels wrong, feels deceptive. Sehyoon isn’t a liar. He might be boring, and mostly unsocial, a little uncertain of himself and what he’s doing, but he won’t be a liar.

So he swallows his nerves, turns to Junhee, and makes sure his voice is loud enough for all of them to hear when he says, “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I- they saw you sitting with me, on the first day of classes, so they thought we knew each other-”

“Don’t sweat it,” the vampire says.

“I- really?” 

Jun’s brows furrow in a familiar scowl, though Sehyoon’s surprised to see this one is simple confusion, too tired to hold any real irritation. “What did you think I was going to do? Push you off the roof just to prove we’re not friends?”

Sehyoon combs a hand through his hair. “Maybe.” The vampire shakes his head, somewhat spitefully, as Byeongkwan giggles.

“You know,” Donghun tells him, appraising Junhee with a thoughtful look, “you don’t seem all that bad.”

Jun rolls his eyes, dusting his hands on his trousers. “Whatever. I’m leaving now, before any of you decide you want to get yourselves killed again.” 

Donghun bats his eyelashes sweetly. “You don’t want to stay and watch the sunrise with us?"

Junhee, already on his feet, glares down at him. “I'll pass,” he says, his smile tight, and they all watch him start away toward the stairwell. Sehyoon doesn’t think he’s imagining how slow his progress is, and he worries for a moment that the sudden movement will set off another bout of agony, but Junhee reaches the door without any setbacks. He throws a glance over his shoulder when he gets there, as if to show them all he’s noticed them staring after him, and his dark gaze lands on Chan. “Next time you do something stupid, get someone else to help you.”

And then he’s gone. Chan blinks for a moment at the spot he used to be, and laughs.


	7. Wake Up Calls

Sehyoon wakes on Sunday morning with a hangover headache pounding so mercilessly at the back of his head that for a moment he doesn’t realise he isn’t in his own room. He groans as he wakes, eyes struggling open, vision blurry as he blinks away sleep, and then reaches for his phone, stomach dropping as his hand swings through air where his dresser should be. He sits up, panicking, only to be dragged back down- there’s an arm twined around his waist that he hadn’t noticed. And then he looks down, eyes travelling up the arm, seeing a familiar swirl of ink, then a woven bracelet, and sees that it’s Donghun curled into his side, and he’s in his and Byeongkwan’s room. The headache pounds again, pain demanding his attention, and with it comes an assault of memories- rushing down staircases, Jun opening his door, Chan’s face twisting with pain. And before that, bathtubs and butterflies, Byeongkwan standing in doorways, asking  _ having fun? _

Fuck.

He tries to peel Donghun’s arm from around him, but it takes a considerable effort, even with the wolf still sleeping, and he flops back down onto the bed a few times and winces, fearing he’ll wake him, before he finally manages to get himself free. He sits up and looks down, seeing the steady rise and fall of Donghun’s chest, where his waistcoat lies open, white shirt beneath crumpled, long hair falling over one side of his face, so Sehyoon can only see the sharp side of his nose in profile, the rest of his face obscured. But he’s clearly sleeping, and when Sehyoon cranes his neck he can see Byeongkwan on the other side of the bed, facing away, back curled with his knees tucked up to his chest, sleeping too.

“You’re awake,” a quiet voice says. Sehyoon jolts, head whipping up to stare at the figure standing against the wall where the bathroom door cuts into the room. Chan smiles down at him.

“Uh, yeah. You’re up early.”

He doesn’t actually know if that’s true, because he hadn’t managed to locate his phone and now has no idea what the time is, but Chan nods anyway, so it must be true.

“I got coffee,” the younger boy says. Sehyoon’s tired eyes take in the usual beige blazer and tie, the near-perfect press of his trousers, how Chan looks exactly like he did yesterday before the party, as if none of it had happened. He’s holding a coffee cup in one hand, still steaming, and a cardboard tray in the other, where more drinks sit waiting. He shakes the tray a little to get Sehyoon’s attention, eyes crinkling at the edges as he smiles. “You look like you need it.”

Laughing begrudgingly, to hide how much he really wants to rush into the bathroom and see how much of a state he must look, Sehyoon accepts a coffee from the tray as it’s held out for him. Chan smiles, and goes to sit in one of the desk chairs, placing the tray down on the desktop without moving to wake the others. 

“You don’t,” Sehyoon says, and then realises that too much time has past since Chan spoke, and now the younger boy is frowning, confused, and he clears his throat and amends with the question, “you’re feeling alright?”

Chan laughs, one short note of sound that’s practically over before it begins and makes Sehyoon think of his other laugh, the pretty one he’d heard the first time they’d spoken, when Sehyoon had been outside of this room instead of curled up on top of the duvet.

“Right as rain,” Chan says, and then quirks a brow. “That’s how the saying goes, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Sehyoon laughs back, trying to hide the sound in a sip of coffee that’s too hot, but still very much appreciated. He raises the cup slightly into the air. “Thanks.”

Chan waves him away, crossing one leg over the other as he sits back, making the small, chipped wood desk chair look like a throne. Sehyoon drags his eyes away and stares into his coffee instead. He’s too hungover and tired to think about his conversation with Donghun, the countless questions it had raised about Chan and his own reaction to him. They’re questions for later. Donghun must smell the coffee, though, because he stirs, and saves Sehyoon from the prospect of trying to hold a conversation by whining awake.

He mumbles something into the pillow, something that might be  _ coffee _ , and Chan smiles and sets his own cup down, standing and taking another from the tray to hold out for Donghun. 

“Here.”

The wolf shuffles to sit up with a grateful sigh, using Sehyoon’s leg as leverage to haul himself up, and accepts the coffee cup. Sehyoon thinks the moment his hand lies over Chan’s might last a moment too long, with the younger boy meeting the wolf’s eyes before he lets go, but pretends not to notice.

“Wake Byeongkwan up too, would you?” Donghun asks, and, with a nod, Chan rounds the bed to Byeongkwan’s side and drops to his knees. His voice is so gentle Sehyoon doesn’t hear anything, can only just see Chan’s hand on one of Byeongkwan’s arms in his peripheral, and it’s a strangely intimate detail that he tries not to notice too. But then there’s a small sound, finally, and it catches his attention. His eyes flicker over to them before he can stop himself, only to see Byeongkwan leaning forward, both arms around Chan’s neck, head tilted to lock their lips together. He obscures most of Chan from Sehyoon’s view, but he can see one eye, closed, and tears his gaze away before it can open and spot him. His face burns.

“He brought coffee,” Donghun says, as if this were a very ordinary scenario. Maybe it is. But Sehyoon isn’t usually at the other side of the bed, glaring into his coffee and wishing to disappear.

Byeongkwan whines, high in his throat, and tightens his grip around Chan’s neck, though this time his head is ducked under the younger boy’s chin. “Five more minutes,” he mumbles.

“Only if you let him go,” Donghun says. Though for a fraction of a second Sehyoon entertains the idea that he’s getting jealous, Donghun’s tone is casual, and Chan chuckles and tries to detach himself unsuccessfully from Byeongkwan’s hold.

“Let go,” Chan laughs down at him, and Byeongkwan squirms closer.

“No.”

Chan raises a brow. Byeongkwan releases him with a dramatic huff and curls into Donghun’s side instead, head on the wolf’s stomach. Sehyoon doesn’t think he’s even been noticed yet.

“Um,” he says, and Chan’s lovely eyes stare up into his at the sound of his voice, “not to- I- how did I end up here?”

Donghun splutters a laugh that almost manages to tip his coffee all over Byeongkwan’s sleeping form, but Chan just smiles, going back to his chair.

“You don’t remember falling asleep on the rooftop?”

Sehyoon flushes scarlet, and shakes his head. 

Donghun laughs breathily, rubbing his eyes.  “You’re heavier than you look, you know.”

“You should have just woken me-”

“It wasn’t a problem,” Chan reassures him, his voice level and compelling, just as it always is. “You looked very cute with your head on Donghun’s shoulder.”

Sehyoon tries his best not to die of embarrassment on the spot and keep his face an ordinary color, as Chan and Donghun share a laugh and a meaningful glance that tells Sehyoon Chan knows exactly what he’s doing.

He sighs, and crumples his empty coffee cup into one fist. “You too, now? I already have these two making fun of me.”

“I’m not making fun,” Chan aruges, shaking his head, “you really were cute.”

Donghun smiles into his coffee. “Did you know you hum in your sleep?”

“Please stop talking about this,” Sehyoon groans. 

Chan chuckles, surprising Sehyoon by reaching up to undo the knot of his tie, throwing it onto the desk. He supposes it shouldn’t be very surprising at all- Chan seems so  _ comfortable _ wherever he is, whether it’s a dim-lit restaurant, a busy party, someone else’s dorm room. His wide smile has a sly edge as he regards Sehyoon watching him, and then he asks, “What would you like us to talk about?”

Really, there are a few things he wants to ask, but they’re all ultimately about the same thing.

_ Will he tell me? _

There’s only one way to find out.

“Why did Jun react so badly to you? When he bit you, the first time.”

It’s at least a little gratifying to see Chan’s brows rise with surprise. “That’s an interesting question,” the younger boy says.

_ That’s not an answer. _

Sehyoon charges on before the question can be swerved in a more permanent way. He asks, “Does it have something to do with what you are?”

Chan’s eyes flicker away from him, to Donghun. Sehyoon hopes he hasn’t just gotten Donghun in trouble, but Chan doesn’t seem too angry, when he looks back at him. There’s something unreadable to his expression though, something hidden well, behind his eyes “And what would that be?”

Sehyoon shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Startling him, and breaking the tension, Chan laughs. “Don’t get out much do you, halfling?”

_ You don’t have very good instincts do you, halfling? _

Sehyoon knows both of them are right. Nymphs tend to keep to themselves, always in the woods, and he’d met a good amount of sprites and other Fae like them, but vampires, wolves, anything wilder, he’s not experienced in. it’s not the first time he’d wished for a more human upbringing, somewhere in a big city, surrounded by other creatures, just so he wouldn’t feel so out of his depth now. 

Chan sighs. “I suppose it’s too much to assume you could go back to thinking of me as human, after what you’ve seen.”

Sehyoon nods. Even if he hadn’t started to wonder himself, or if he hadn’t had the conversation with Donghun at the party, Jun’s reaction to Chan’s blood would have been enough to raise suspicion. The memory of it plays out again and again, overlapping the image of Chan lounging in the desk chair with a calm smile, as if everything were under control- Jun tearing himself away, blood on his lips, eyes wide.

Chan just keeps smiling.

Sehyoon sighs. “This is where you tell me it’ll be  _ more fun to see me figure it out myself, _ isn’t it?”

Donghun snorts, but Chan considers Sehyoon with a tip of his head, wide, soft smile transitioning into something smaller, more genuine, sharper.

“Maybe,” he says, in his smooth voice, like he’s tasting the word. “Maybe I just don’t feel like telling you yet.”

Sehyoon pouts into his coffee, but it’s not something he should argue with. He can feel Chan’s gaze heavy on his face, looking for something, but he can’t force his eyes up to the younger boy’s.

He makes his excuses to leave them later on that morning, pleading fatigue- not entirely lying, but there really is something he should be doing today, and though the idea of staying is almost too tempting to pass up, he forces himself to go back to his own room, to shower and change his clothes, and then he has errands to run. He returns a book to the library, and then it’s into town. His dorm looks far less depressing by the end of the day, all of the items he’d thought up purchase and installed- new duvet, corkscrew board covered up, a cushion for the chair, even a rug under foot, to stop the cold seeping up from the floor. Rest is wishful thinking, so instead of sleeping he takes the little plant pots from his window and spends the rest of the night and into the early morning colouring them, painting nature scenes on all four, a forest, a mountain, a river and a city in miniature detail. It’s Monday eventually.

He knows just how ridiculous it is to hover outside of a classroom looking busy, but here he is doing just that, anyway, knowing no one will ever buy it, still unable to force himself into the classroom. He’d got it into his head sometime that morning that if he went to his usual spot, everything would be reversed, all of the progress he’d made run backwards, until it was as if they’d never even spoken, the three boys sitting in the row in front of his just like they’d always done before, not even sparing a glance at him behind them.

Just like he’d wanted, they spot him lingering by the door. Chan’s nice enough to pretend to buy the busy act.

“Sehyoon!” he calls, from across the room. “You’re early.”

Sehyoon nods, smiling, praying that the lack of sleep doesn’t show very obviously in his face as he feels three sets of eyes flicker over his features. They reach the doors, and Chan smiles at him. “Are you coming?”

So they enter together, for the first time. Byeongkwan already has one of his arms through Sehyoon’s, and he drags him into his own seat in the middle, shoving Chan up one space to the right. That’s how Sehyoon finds himself sitting between Donghun and Byeongkwan and wondering whether this was really such a good idea.

“Feeling better?” Donghun asks, the gentleness of the question offset by the slight smirk at his lips, that turns it into a tease.

“Much,” Sehyoon lies through a sigh. Sure, the headache and the nausea are gone, but he doesn’t feel  _ better _ . He feels like he’s drunk. He even considers whether he might be getting sick, before he looks down and realises Byeongkwan and Donghun both have a hand on either of his legs, Byeongkwan at his thigh, Donghun on the other knee, and realises the real reason for his dizziness. They press close, and talk constantly, and he feels like he can’t breath, feels ridiculous for feeling like this because of such little things, until the lecture starts and they turn to the front of the class again. They don’t talk anymore, but their grip on him doesn’t change, doesn’t slacken.

It’s at least twenty minutes later, the class in full swing, before the door opens again, and all four of them turn toward it, as if already sensing who’s stepped through. Junhee, a black shadow amongst the blues and browns of the students around him, makes his way slowly through the desks, oblivious to the way the lecturer stops speaking for a moment to give him a meaningful glare. There aren’t many empty seats, and Junhee doesn’t even glance toward their row to see the empty ones there, which only leaves the few in the front row. The four of them can map his progress across the room, and Sehyoon thinks there’s a strange stillness to their row that means they are, all of them watching him, as he pulls out the empty chair and throws his bag down, still taking his time. Just as Sehyoon thinks he should take his eyes away, Junhee turns. Just a subtle turn of his head, so they can see his profile. Just like the rooftop- he’s noticed they’re all watching him again. But he sits, without looking at them properly. Sehyoon tries to forget him, but his eyes keep dropping distractedly to that spot in the front row and, a few times, he catches the others looking, too.


	8. Ice

Sehyoon’s laughing as they all walk out of class together, but not for long- just as he steps through the door and into the corridor, he sees the boy resting against the wall opposite, the boy who’s watching him, dark eyes burning into his.

Donghun, one arm thrown over Sehyoon’s shoulders, spots him at the same time and grins, wide and slow. “Morning, fledgling.”

Jun ignores him and the new nickname. “We need to talk,” he says, as blunt as ever, and Sehyoon hesitates as he sees he’s the one being addressed. Junhee’s eyes flicker behind him as Byeongkwan and Chan step out of class, something rushing over his features and gone just as fast, but then they settle back on him, expectant.

Sehyoon shrugs out of Donghun’s hold and tries not to think about it too much. “Go on without me.”

Donghun’s eyes flicker up and down the vampire curiously. “You’re sure?”

Byeongkwan has already shrugged, and started leading Chan away, and Sehyoon smiles at Donghun reassuringly, and nods. “I’ll see you later.”

The wolf starts away, slowly though, as if at any moment he’s going to change his mind, keeping his eyes on the two of them for a few steps until he apparently decides to just let it be, and turns in pursuit of the others. 

Junhee says nothing, watching them go. Sehyoon coughs awkwardly into a hand.

“Did you need something?”

The vampire shakes his head, just once, his actions just as short and impatient as his words. “Just wanted to extend some advice.”

Sehyoon stares at him, and then shoves his hands in his pockets, huffing a laugh. “You’re going to tell me to stay away from them, aren’t you?”

Junhee’s eyes are serious and unamused as they level with his again. “You should listen to me.”

There’s no reason for a sentiment so simple to annoy Sehyoon as it does, but he can feel his fingers tense in the fabric of his trousers, squeezing into fists inside his pockets, and he laughs scornfully, a sound he’s sure he’s never made before, that gets no reaction from the vampire.

“Why?” he asks. “Because you know so much more than me, _fledgling_?”

It’s mean, and he knows he shouldn’t say it, though he can’t deny that for once it feels good to have something sharp on his tongue, to be the one using the insults, no longer just the halfling that doesn’t know enough. And once it’s out, and he sees the muscle in Junhee’s jaw jump and realises that no matter how small, he’d gotten a reaction out of him, he can’t seem to stop. He crosses the line- 

“Your parents don’t even know about you, do they?”

_Shit._

_Am I_ ** _trying_** _to get myself killed?_

The bravado leaves him, turning in an instant to startled shame, as real anger trickles into Junhee’s expression. But the question is out now, hovering in the silence between them, and Junhee’s eyes narrow, the usual dark look replaced with an awful, watchful stillness. “What’s that to you, halfling?”

Sehyoon throws up his hands, knowing there’s no way to get out of the conversation now he’d spoken. “You’re talking as if you’re different, as if you could possibly know any better than I do, but you’re still getting pains, and you’re taking a _psychology_ course, for God’s sake.” Byeongkwan had told Sehyoon that he’d chosen his major by rolling a dice, and Donghun had just joined him, had told him he’d follow him anywhere and apparently meant it. But they’re a small group, the supernaturals in such a human class, and Sehyoon had wondered for a while at how Junhee had fit in amongst them. It was on the rooftop, when the vampire had left and Donghun had made some comment about fledgling arrogance that he’d realised Junhee might still have been human when he’d chosen his major.

“Has it even been a month since you turned?”

Junhee’s glowering now, no longer trying to hide his reaction to the words. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Neither do you,” Sehyoon says, firm, forcing himself to look Junhee in the eye and not avoid the glare, knowing he deserves it, but not wanting to back down. “So stop pretending as if you do.”

Junhee scoffs. “You’re still half human-”

“Human like you used to be? Is that it?”

Oh, how he hates this. Hates that it haunts him, this being split down the middle, never quite fitting into either side, too strange to be human, too weak to be something more. How he hates being the _halfling_ who can’t stand up for himself, who needs all the help he can get, needs to be told what to do and what not to do. The mention of it strengthens his resolve and this time, his voice is sharp, and cold, and doesn’t sound like his voice at all. 

“Half, Jun. _Only_ half.” He’s already stepping away, hiking his bag further up his arm and giving Junhee a tight parting smile. “So thank you for your concern, but it’s not necessary.”

Even as he’s turning away, Sehyoon’s wondering why he’d snapped so quickly. It isn’t like him to argue. Should he have listened? The sudden defensiveness had ran deeper than the usual irritation at being underestimated, labelled too human to fend for himself. If he were being honest with himself, he might admit that it was just a desperate need to cling to his optimism, to turn his thoughts away from any warning Junhee had planned to give so he could go on pretending Chan and Donghun and Byeongkwan were perfect. He doesn’t want anything to tarnish his image of them.

But what does Junhee know, anyway? He’d never even spoken with them until after the party, and even then he hadn’t been around for long, and he’s certainly not the friendliest. So why should Sehyoon put any stock in his opinion?

Forget it. It’s not as if Sehyoon can’t make up his own mind, not as if he’s invested so much now that he can’t take a break if they get too much, Donghun’s crazy ideas and Chan’s tight lipped amusement- though he doubts very much that he’d ever want to turn away from either. It seems as if they’ve known each other far longer than the week it has been in reality, though at the same time the excitement and the curiosity are new, and sharper because they’re new, because he’s not used to being a part of a group like them, and still wonders at how it could be possible.

His phone buzzes in his pocket as he gets to the end of the corridor, Chan’s number flashing across his screen, and Sehyoon freezes so suddenly that the door he’d just stepped through slams into his back, sending him stumbling forward. He shakily answers the call and raises his phone to his ear, hoping no one lingering in the building was paying attention enough to notice the slip up.

“Yes?”

“Thought I’d better call and tell you where to find us,” Chan’s smooth voice says, somehow even more compelling through the phone, making something nervous flutter not unpleasantly in Sehyoon’s stomach.

“You’re waiting for me?”

Chan’s pretty laugh is slightly muffled through the connection. “Of course. Outside the library. We’re taking you for lunch.”

Sehyoon is so distracted that he doesn’t realise he’s no longer paying attention to where he’s going until he’s colliding with something, some _one,_ and his phone goes crashing out of his hands. The boy he’d walked into gasps high in surprise, an bends to scoop it up- Sehyoon’s eyes widen as the other boy straightens, and he realises the blush and the smile are horribly familiar.

“Minseok?”

The younger boy’s just as surprised to see him, big, round eyes even made even wider with shock, his cheeks flushed the baby-pink Sehyoon always remembers them being, light brown hair sticking up at the back in a way he clearly hasn’t noticed.

“Sehyoon!” he gasps, his voice high and breathy and uncertain, just like it had been last time they’d spoken. He’s still holding out Sehyoon’s phone. “I’m sorry- your-”  
Sehyoon takes it from him, shaking himself- he’d practically forgotten about his conversation with Chan as soon as he’d looked up and saw Minseok blinking back at him. “Give me a second, would you?” he asks, and Minseok nods jerkily, hands clasped in front of him, as Sehyoon puts the phone back to his ear. “Listen, Chan, I’ll find you in a bit-”

“Something’s come up?”

Minseok grins uncertainly back at him, still pink-cheeked, and rubs at the back of his neck. Sehyoon tries not to laugh as he talks through the connection- “Just a friend- I won’t be long.” Chan starts to speak again, but he doesn’t catch what he says, already lowering the phone and ending the call, shoving it in a back pocket as Minseok smiles up at him.

“What’re you doing here?”

Minseok toes at the tile below him. “Helping a friend with his paper,” he says, laughing self-consciously through the words. “I didn’t know you study here.”

“Yeah,” Sehyoon says, laughing too. He hits Minseok lightly on the arm. “That friend of yours isn’t bullying you into doing his homework for you, is he?”

“No, no, of course not,” Minseok stammers, and Sehyoon shakes his head fondly, having forgotten how young and small and uncertain the other boy always appears, for seemingly no reason. It makes Sehyoon feel older. 

Minseok coughs awkwardly and opens his mouth to say something, but then a soft humming fills the stairwell they’re standing in, and footsteps follow. He looks over his shoulder, shy all of a sudden, and Sehyoon looks too, his attention drawn to the sound. Chan has one hand in his pocket as he climbs up the last of the stairs, his phone swinging loosely in the other, the same mellow tune echoing off of the walls as he hums.

“You seemed distracted,” he says, and Sehyoon is so surprised to see him suddenly stepping toward them that it takes a moment for him to understand that Chan’s talking to him. “I thought I would come see what had caught your attention.”

He smiles as he stops, and Minseok inches a little closer to Sehyoon. It’s the same wide, friendly smile Sehyoon had grown used to- by no means immune to, but _used_ to- but this time it’s different, because Chan’s usual dark eyes are...blue. Icy, cold blue, startlingly pale in the yellowish light of the stairwell.

“I just bumped into a friend,” Sehyoon says, his brain kicking into autopilot as Minseok gulps and doesn’t say anything, barely thinking about the words before he’s saying them. Chan’s icy eyes never leave Minseok, and the smile grows, somehow less friendly in growing.

“You’ll not be long, I hope?” Chan asks, still staring at Minseok, though the question’s obviously to Sehyoon. “Byeongkwan’s complaining.”

“Uh, no-”

“It was nice to see you,” Minseok says, the shy laugh coloring his voice a little higher now, and he’s already stepping closer to the door behind Sehyoon, an arm held out to open it. “I should- my friend will be wondering where I am.”

There’s a quick goodbye, and then Minseok’s through the door and Sehyoon’s turning back, just him and Chan in the stairwell now, Chan still on the top step with a hand gripping the banister, so Sehyoon’s looking down at him, blue eyes watchful.

Sehyoon swallows thickly, but has the strange impression that Chan wants him to react, and, even stranger, finds himself pretending not to notice the change. Instead, he sighs and tips his head to the door behind him. “What was that about?”

“You hung up on me,” Chan says, no longer smiling as he stares up at him, his expression a perfect neutral. “I didn’t want to think that you were trying to get away from us.”

Sehyoon’s brows furrow. “Why would I do that?”

The barest hint of a dry smile tips the corners of Chan’s lips. “Junhee can’t have been kind.”

“Were you listening?”

“No,” Chan sighs, and Sehyoon realises he’d just confirmed something Chan might not have been as confident about as he’d sounded. “But it wasn’t difficult to imagine what he might say. He told you to stay away from us?”

After a moment of consideration, Sehyoon admits, “Yes.”

The blue-eyed boy tilts his head. “ _Us_ , or _me_?”

Sehyoon shrugs, shoving his instinct down again, trying not to let his surprise show on his face. “I didn’t hang around long enough to ask.”

Chan says nothing. They stand, just the two of them, in the silent stairwell, and then Chan pouts thoughtfully, looking more like himself in an instant, and nods, sighing. “Come on,” he says, already turning, “Byeongkwan really has started to complain about the wait.”

Sehyoon hesitates, just for a second, as Chan’s footsteps echo around the small space, and then follows him back down the stairs. 

Byeongkwan and Donghun exchange a startled look as they trail out of the building, Sehyoon a few steps behind Chan, catching a glimpse of the silver-blue of Chan’s eyes. 

“New look?” Donghun asks, recovering first, and Chan nods. 

“Got bored of all the brown,” he says, blunt, not bothering to entertain the half-joke with something more gentle. Sehyoon stops just behind him, and Byeongkwan and Donghun’s eyes flicker to him and then away just as quickly. They make conversation on the way to lunch, as they eat, on the way back to campus, but none of it is about Chan, and neither of them ask what Junhee had wanted.


	9. Lunch

Lunch is a tense affair, at least for the first five minutes: Chan takes them to another hidden spot, Donghun orders for the table, and Sehyoon perches at the far end of a bench and wonders at the glances they all throw Chan, wonders even more at Chan completely ignoring them when he’s usually all jokes, all smiles. The lack of a smile now is even sharper, even more strikingly noticeable, now his eyes remain stubbornly, icily blue. 

Then Byeongkwan orders a drink, and Donghun too, and they start seeming more themselves. Sehyoon twirls a straw around his own tumbler, something he’d ordered more in panic than because he’d wanted it, something red and sour he immediately regrets. It looks like blood. It reminds him of Junhee. Or maybe Chan.

Byeongkwan startles him out of his sulking by leaning closer, pulling the cherry sticking from Sehyoon’s glass out by its stem- Donghun elbows him in the side, and he yelps, almost dropping it before it gets to his mouth.

“Thief,” Donghun scolds, not really paying attention.

Byeongkwan pouts and look up at Sehyoon, like he’s asking permission, and it makes Sehyoon so nervous that he nods, shakily, and then gulps most of his drink in one go. Byeongkwan giggles.

Donghun, on the other side of the sprite, gives Sehyoon an appraising look as he sips from his own glass. “It’s a weekday, you know,” he says, voice lilting and low enough that it’s clearly a tease. “Not worried you’ll start falling behind, if you succumb to our bad influences?”

Sehyoon rolls his eyes, but Chan beats him to the rebuttal he’d been planning.

“He got an eighty on that pop quiz,” he says, disinterestedly, looking around the restaurant even as they all glance at him. It’s the first thing he’s said since they sat down. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Ignoring the way Byeongkwan’s gaping at him, Sehyoon clears his throat. “How do you know that?”

Chan gives him a strange look, eyes cutting back to his. “I saw it.”

Of course. They’d been sitting together, after all, and Byeongkwan was the only thing between his seat and Chan’s when they’d gotten the papers back. He could have easily read the little red numbers at the top of Sehyoon’s page. All Sehyoon had achieved by asking him how he knew about it was raising suspicion. Chan’s still looking at him, as if trying to see any signs of distrust on Sehyoon’s face.

But he won’t find any. It’s just the after-effects of Junhee’s words, the vampire’s paranoia, not his. Sehyoon gives him a smile, and Chan looks away.

“Maybe I could do with a tutor,” Byeongkwan says, arms twisting around one of Sehyoon’s suggestively. 

“I’m wounded,” Donghun sighs, and when Sehyoon raises a brow at him, the corners of his lips turn up into a sly grin. 

“Maybe you should ask Donghun,” he tells Byeongkwan, tipping his chin to the werewolf, as Donghun continues to hold his stare. “He’ll be getting jealous of all the attention.”

Byeongkwan shakes his head, throwing Donghun a look over his shoulder as he shuffles closer to Sehyoon’s side. “He’s a terrible teacher.”

Donghun snorts into his glass. Considering the mark Sehyoon had spotted at the top of his paper (Chan hadn’t been the only one sneaking glances) he suspects that’s probably not true, and the issue is more to do with Byeongkwan as a student, but he doesn’t say anything, and neither does Donghun. 

They have longer until the food arrives, this time, the brunch place a little busier this time of day than the restaurant where they’d had dinner together. Sehyoon lets Donghun and Byeongkwan (mainly Byeongkwan) talk for a while, cutting in a few times to defend himself from their teasing, but mainly sitting back and enjoying the way the two of them play off of each other, the way they joke as if they’d known each other forever, as if they always know what the other is thinking. Chan is still frozen in cold silence at the other end of the table, but they’re so fun Sehyoon forgets, until the joke Donghun had been telling ends. He just manages to spot Donghun glancing at Chan, and then the conversation turns to something else, some _one_ else, and Sehyoon’s stomach twists nervously.

“What did the fledgling want?”

It doesn’t seem to get Chan’s attention, but Sehyoon’s too conscious of the weight of their stares all the same, even if Byeongkwan looks vaguely bored. He’d wanted to avoid this topic for as long as possible.

Sehyoon doesn’t think lying would be a good idea, so he runs a hand through his hair, and admits, “He still doesn’t like you very much.”

Byeongkwan sighs, and Donghun rolls his eyes.

“I saw him running last night. I don’t think he noticed me, but…” he breaks off, and shakes his head, and Sehyoon is surprised to see a frown line between his brows, that looks less like anger and more like worry. “He’s still getting _death pains,”_ the wolf complains, “you’d think he’d be more careful.”

Sehyoon gapes at him, but Byeongkwan just laughs, close-lipped, and relocates from Sehyoon’s arm to Donghun’s, poking the wolf’s stomach teasingly.

“You’re so soft,” he giggles. Donghun squirms, and he stops poking him. “It’s not as if he can do himself much harm.”

From the end of the booth, Chan says, “And I doubt he’d appreciate the concern.”

Before any of them can respond, the food finally arrives, and once the waiter’s gone, none of them pick up the conversation where they’d left it. Byeongkwan and Donghun are back into their rhythm again, and it’s not awkward, not the same as the few moments after they sat down where they didn’t seem to have anything to say, though the conversation now purposefully steers shy of the vampire. Chan even joins in, a little, though it’s talk of classes and boring parties they’d been to, and he doesn’t seem entirely invested, still distracted by something, or maybe just pretending to be distracted. Sehyoon’s finished two more tumblers full of crimson liquid by the time the empty plates are taken away, but Byeongkwan just orders him another, and one for himself, and Sehyoon resigns himself to a far longer lunch than he’d originally thought it would be and, if things keep going the way they’re going, a hangover the next day. He doesn’t really mind, though. Byeongkwan is giggly and Donghun is in his element, eyes sparkling, barking laughter at every joke, the life of the party.

Sehyoon excuses himself to the bathroom and leaves them like that, Byeongkwan and Donghun leaning close together, laughing, Chan almost smiling as he adds something to the joke Sehyoon can’t hear. Maybe when he comes back, he thinks, Chan’ll be in a better mood, too. There’s only so long sulking can hold out when you’re with Byeongkwan and Donghun, and even now Chan doesn’t seem _upset,_ not even angry, just quiet, not quite himself. 

Sehyoon looks over his reflection in a grimy bathroom mirror and realises how skewed his glasses are, and his hair is messy from all of the nervous running of his hands through it, when Byeongkwan’s jokes get a little pointed, and Donghun’s eyes flicker with slyness. He’s starting to feel the alcohol now, but his drinks had been far less potent than the others’, and it’s only a pleasant buzz, a little numbness, and he doesn’t mind that either, not at all. He stumbles back out of the bathroom smiling, narrowly avoiding walking into another student who’s far worse for wear than he is. The light is stylishly dim in this restaurant, just like the last, and it feels far later than it is in reality, the half-blinds blocking out most of the light so that it takes a moment for him to relocate their table, though it’s not far from the restroom doors.

And then he spots them, and stops.

Byeongkwan’s in the process of fishing a cherry from his drink with a spoon and an enraptured expression, but Sehyoon barely notices him. It’s the other two boys at the table who have his attention- all he can see of Donghun is his profile, the long strands of hair spilling down the back of his neck, one of his hands where it balls in the fabric of Chan’s blazer. And then Chan, eyes closed, one hand cradling the back of Donghun’s head as they kiss. It’s messy, not the kind he’d saw of them before, the kind for behind closed doors, not the middle of a brunch place with another boy beside them, and Sehyoon can’t quite manage to step the extra few paces up the table. He’d been so stupid not to realise the reason for Donghun’s lack of jealousy, but here it is, right in front of him, and he curses himself for not expecting it. Not like this, at least.

He's still frozen in the middle of an aisle when Chan opens his eyes and looks straight at him. It’s not a glance, not even a glare: it’s purposeful, drawn out, and the room suddenly seems unbearably hot, airless, as Sehyoon hopelessly stares back at the blue eyes burning into his. 

Then he turns and rushes out of the restaurant before anyone else can spot him.

He doesn’t know what it means, what Chan had been trying to tell him with a look like that. It could have been possessiveness, like the way his fingers had tangled in Donghun’s hair, but it could equally be something else, and the _something else_ has been hanging around them all for a while, if Sehyoon’s honest with himself, and it’s far more complicated, and he can’t tell if he wants it, yet. Well, he can’t tell if he wants it when he’s not with them. When he is, the answer comes easy.

But Junhee’s words echo in his mind now, the vampire’s irritated scowl replaying in his memory, and when he’s alone he’s more cautious, and the voice is louder. They keep managing to win him over when he starts to doubt them, and it’s only like this, when he’s in his tiny bedroom by himself, that he even notices it’s happened.

The sun has set by the time he gives up thinking about it. He’s always been like this- alone, he’ll just go around in circles, worry after worry, and he’ll never reach any conclusion. He’s not decisive, not like Donghun, who always seems to know what he wants. Not sly enough to keep up with Byeongkwan. Not clever enough to know what Chan’s thinking.

He needs to not think. He needs air.

The effects of the alcohol have left him by the time he makes it to the rooftop, praying to everything he can think of that Donghun isn’t there, or if he is, that he’ll at least be by himself. He’s not lucky at the best of times, though, and he gets onto the rooftop and immediately spots the figure of a boy beside the barrier, and realises he isn't alone. But whoever it is is _be_ _hind_ the barrier. Not Donghun.

It’s Jun, and he’s not standing. He’s crouching, grasping the metal bars in front of him with both hands, and his head is bowed, turning his silhouette into a confusing blur against the blackness, an indistinct, dark shape. From his spot by the door, Sehyoon can only just hear the shallowness of his breath. 

He hesitates. He should go up to him, _would_ , if he were anyone else. But Junhee had made it clear he didn’t want their help last time Sehyoon had seen him like this, and after their fight this morning, Sehyoon's concern would likely be even less appreciated. He tries to think of some way he could help without making it obvious, but there’s no one he can tell that could help someone already dead that doesn't want to accept their help, and he doesn’t want to give away the rooftop’s location.

In the end, the only thing he thinks Junhee might actually want is for him to turn a blind eye, and pretend he hadn’t seen anything. So he does, and for the second time that day, Sehyoon finds himself walking away from his problems.


	10. Lavender and Mint

And then he’s climbing back up onto the rooftop, two minutes later, this time hoping there _is_ someone there.

Junhee has hardly moved since he left him, though he’s standing now, no longer clutching the barrier. As Sehyoon steps toward him, it’s clear the pain is gone, but the vampire’s taking deep, long breaths as if to calm his nerves, and with a wide-eyed surprise Sehyoon sees there’s a cigarette between his fingers, smoking and glowing against the darkness.

“I came up here to be alone,” Junhee says, his blunt, voice still just as blunt and cold as ever, his eyes not leaving the spot of blackness he’s staring into, just empty air that seems to hold all of his attention.

“So did I,” Sehyoon says, shrugging. He leans his side against the cold metal of the barrier, a few feet shy of Jun, but level, and smiles wryly. “Guess neither of us are getting what we want.”

Junhee scoffs in a way that’s clearly not a laugh, a nastier, more impatient sound, and flicks the cigarette off of the roof. It’s a circle of light whirling through the air, and then gone. Junhee’s already turning on his heels, hands shoved into the pockets of his dark trousers, and Sehyoon startles, and turns around.

“Wait-”

Junhee stops, to his surprise, if only for the purpose of turning around and giving Sehyoon a withering glare. Sehyoon bears it, hands behind his back, though his eyes instinctively settle on the concrete at his feet.

“I wanted to apologise,” he mumbles, and then kicks himself, and clears his throat, and tries again with more feeling. “For this morning. I- I’m sorry.”

The vampire raises a brow, unimpressed. “What for?”

“For being dismissive,” Sehyoon says immediately, though he can’t drag his gaze from the floor. “And snappy. I’d like to think it wasn’t like me.”

The vampire’s glare is hot and scalding in the silence that passes, only a few seconds in reality, though it feels like an eternity under that glare.

Then Junhee says, “Alright.”

Sehyoon shakes his head, not finished. “And it- it wasn’t my place to talk about your parents-”

“You’re mentioning them again,” Junhee points out, stone-faced.

“Shit,” Sehyoon winces. “Sorry, really, I don’t-”

The other boy chuckles darkly. “Forget it.”

Sehyoon panics, and his head whips up, but it’s not annoyance- Junhee’s nodding, and his _forget it_ seems more an acceptance, a lets-never-talk-about-this-again rather than a your-apology-sucks kind of _forget it._

Sehyoon lets out a huge sigh of relief and shuffles, finally bringing the thing he’d been holding out from behind his back, trying not to hesitate as Junhee’s eyes follow the movement. “I brought- here.”

Junhee eyes the plant pot in Sehyoon’s hand with suspicion, one brow quirked, face half-turned away. “What is it?”

Sehyoon at least knows better than to say ‘gift.’ He doubts that would go down well. Instead, he tries, “A peace offering?” He holds it out, more insistently, and manages to get it into the vampire’s hands, breath shaking into another relieved exhale as he steps back again and rakes a hand through his hair.

“Lavender,” Junhee says, under his breath. He’s holding the pot in both hands, blinking down at it, and the word had slipped through his lips as if he’d been sleep-talking, mumbled and quiet and hardly there at all.

Sehyoon smiles, and tugs at a strand of hair, fidgeting. “Actually, no, that’s just- I enchanted it.” Junhee’s eyes narrow, and he hurries on, more nervously. “Nothing bad! Just...you don’t have to water it. Or give it sunlight. It’ll grow whatever you do to it.”

Junhee glances back down at the little green sprout with more interest. It’s small, but vividly green, leaves feather-soft, so perfect it looks fake. Sehyoon can’t help but feel a little pleased with it. There aren’t many things to distinguish him from the humans around him, just his green-fingers, a little more strength and stamina, and a few mundane tricks. He’s alright with that, now. He’d stopped wishing for more a while ago. Byeongkwan has helped him with that, too. It’s not quite the same, because Byeongkwan’s a pure blood, and they’re not even the same thing anyway...but still. Seeing Byeongkwan in full bloom had silenced any remaining embarrassment whispering in the back of Sehyoon’s mind about what he can do, what he is.

But then Junhee just keeps staring down at the plant pot, and he panics.

“I’m sorry if you don’t like the smell. It was supposed to be a mint plant, I mean it _is,_ but, well, everything I grow smells like that and I can’t really-”

Junhee talks over him easily. “I like lavender.”

Sehyoon snaps his mouth shut, uncertain of what to say. He settles on another, “I’m sorry.”

The vampire rolls his dark eyes. “Yeah, you said.” His boots scruff loose asphalt as he takes a step back, not yet turning around, and he waves the plant pot a little in the air. “I’m keeping the peace offering.”

Sehyoon looks down, bashfully, trying to hide his smile, and sees the stub of another cigarette, still smoking, on the ground where Junhee had been standing. He toes it with his boot, and when he looks up, Junhee’s watching him from a few feet away with a raised brow, clearly waiting for something. “Do these things... _do_ anything, for you?”

Jun’s eyes flicker down to them too. “No,” he confesses, arms dropping to his sides. “Used to. Now it’s just...routine, I guess.”

“They’re really bad for you, anyway,” Sehyoon says, trying to make him feel better, and then bites his lip, blushing scarlet.

Junhee laughs. Just one, short note, still cold, like his voice, not quite reaching his eyes. “Don’t get yourself locked out up here, freak.”

Sehyooon nods dumbly and watches him go. When Junhee’s footsteps fade out, he settles against the barrier, looking out over the rooftop. A small smile tugs at his lips, and his sigh paints the black darkness a softer grey. Tomorrow feels like a lifetime away, in the stillness, by himself in the cold, but it catches up to him.

Tuesday. He gets to class before them all, just like he had yesterday, but he doesn’t stop at the door. He settles into Chan’s chair this time. It makes him more nervous than it should, thinking about them entering the room all together without him, thinking about how embarrassing it will be if they see him and turn away, sit somewhere else, and he’s left to sit in the middle of their chairs and pretend the avoidance isn’t obvious. He forces himself to stay there. His coffee goes cold, he’s sitting there for so long, and he notices only when the first few students start trailing into the room, cupping it between his hands until little strands of steam float from it again, but he doesn’t actually drink any of it, just fiddles with the cardboard and almost spills it all over the desks. 

He shouldn’t be this nervous just waiting for them. He’d gotten comfortable, hadn’t he? As much as he could, while struggling to stomach his own self-consciousness, around them. But he’d left them at the restaurant and hadn’t saw them since, and he doesn’t know how they’ll react. Or what he’s doing. Is it really going to work, just pretending nothing happened?

“Morning.”

Sehyoon jumps out of his skin at Donghun’s tired mumble, almost tipping his chair backwards as he turns to see the older boy sipping a coffee behind his seat. His eyes stray either side of him, frowning, and Donghun just smiles down at him.

Sehyoon gulps. “The others aren’t coming?”

There’s a quiet, close-lipped chuckle as Donghun pulls out his usual seat, one empty chair between them. “They’re just running late,” he shrugs, slouching back in his seat. “Byeongkwan’s suffering.” He taps his temples, and Sehyoon remembers how many drinks they had all had at lunch yesterday, and tries not to think about how many more they’d had after he left them.

“But..he’s still coming to class?”

Donghun snorts as he takes three pads of paper from his satchel and sets them on his desk. “He better be.”

But the wolf has barely begun sliding the notebooks over to their desks when Byeongkwan skips up, Chan trailing behind him, and slides into his chair between them. He doesn’t _look_ like he’s suffering- his hair has been tied back up into its tiny ponytails, though the butterflies are gone, and his usual disco-ball jacket shed in favour of a scarlet suede thing over a black-sequined shirt, matching red smeared over his lips and lining his eyes. The sprite raises an amused brow, and Sehyoon wonders whether there will ever be a day when he isn’t caught gaping dumbly up at him, and turns his gaze away.

The class is filling up, though their lecturer is running a few minutes late, and a group of boys who had been behind Chan are passing their table now, whispering amongst themselves- they wouldn’t have caught Sehyoon’s attention if Donghun hadn’t raised his head, started following them with narrowed eyes. He just manages to hear something, a mumbling voice that sounds unkind as the boys slide into the row before theirs, but as the last of the four passes, he turns around to look over his shoulder, and he doesn’t need to pick out the words to realise the object of the conversation. Byeongkwan’s fussing with his jacket, trying to make the collar sit straighter, and doesn’t seem to hear, but Donghun’s looking right back at the stranger as he mutters something that sounds uncomfortably similar to _who does he think he is._ One of the other boys snicker. Sehyoon’s stomach turns, and he thinks he probably heard wrong, but then Donghun’s howling with laughter, throwing back his head, effectively getting the attention of the group in front of them.

The standing boy, the one who'd spoken, scowls. “Is something funny?”

Donghun stares up at him, lips still stretched into a wide grin, and tips his head. Sehyoon realises with a start that all of the other boys are wolves, too, probably a pack. He doesn’t like the look in Donghun’s eyes.

But Byeongkwan’s caught on now, and under the table he slides a hand onto Donghun’s knee, a placating gesture Donghun knows all too well, and the wolf just shrugs, and backs down.

“Nothing.”

The stranger glares down at him for another moment, not saying anything, and then nods, turning back to pull out his chair.

“I think you want to apologise.”

Chan had been so quiet beside him that Sehyoon had almost forgotten about him, but now he jolts, and sees Chan’s been paying more attention than he’d thought. The wolf, still standing, seems to notice him for the first time too, the easy stretch of Chan’s smile, the way he’s leaning back in his chair, the startling blue of his eyes.

“What?”

Chan’s voice is different now, smoother, as he repeats, “You want to apologise,” never taking his eyes from the other boy, and the wolf blinks at him, and then suddenly beams, his eyes crinkling into a smile, and turns back to Byeongkwan.

“Sorry,” the stranger says, and the word is strangled and rough, as if it’s being squeezed out of his throat.

“Like you mean it,” Chan prompts. He holds a hand in the air as the wolf opens his mouth again, and in the silence, leans closer to Sehyoon’s side. “I could make him do it on his knees, if you’d prefer it,” he tells Byeongkwan.

The sprite rolls his eyes. “Knock it off,” he says, and Chan leans away, pouting. The wolf in the next row drops into his seat like a puppet cut from its strings.

Donghun shakes his head, sighing, as the lecturer finally enters, and skitters past the desks to the front of the room. Byeongkwan opens the notebook he’d been given, and shuffles in his chair.

“Are you alright?” Sehyoon asks, voice low, and Byeongkwan turns his face toward him, looking surprised at the question, as a slow grin starts to light up his soft features slyly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks back, and it sounds as if he’s serious, just confused by Sehyoon’s worry, until he leans a little closer, winks, and adds, “All the boys are talking about me.”

Sehyoon splutters a startled laugh, loud enough in his surprise that a few heads turn his way, and Byeongkwan giggles, pleased with himself. Sehyoon doesn’t think anyone could really be that unbothered about what people say about them, but if anything, Byeongkwan seems to be in a better mood than before, and Sehyoon finds it so strange and amusing that he doesn’t even notice Junhee hadn’t shown up to class until it’s over, and they're all stumbling out into the sunlight.


	11. Bribery and Negotiation

“Lunch,” Donghun demands, as soon as they’re standing in the sun.

Sehyoon groans up at the sky. “Were you even listening to that lecture? We have three assignments for next week.”

Donghun shivers, though the air is pleasantly warm in the sunlight. “You didn’t need to remind me.”

Byeongkwan pouts and buries his face in Chan’s blazer. “How am I going to  _ survive _ ?”

Chan shoves him away, rolling his eyes at the dramatics, and crosses his arms. “We’ll all need to eat at some point,” he tells Sehyoon, and the halfling gulps, suddenly realising his nagging means he’s now the one making plans.

“The library has food. Or you can get something to take away and-”

“And  _ study? _ ” Byeongkwan finishes, as if Sehyoon’s asking him to commit some heinous crime. “You can’t be serious.”

“I thought you said you needed a tutor.”

A spark of interest lights in Byeongkwan’s eyes. “Are you offering?”

“I’m considering it,” Sehyoon shrugs. 

The sprite narrows his eyes, looking him over. Donghun, hands in his pockets, doesn’t seem too opposed to the idea, surprisingly, though he does laugh at Byeongkwan’s conflicted expression. “He whines,” he warns Sehyoon. “A lot.”

“I’m sure I can handle that.”

Byeongkwan throws up his hands. “Fine! Fine, we can go waste away in a library instead of having fun. But if I don’t ace those assignments, there’ll be Hell.”

Chan somehow manages to excuse himself to buy the food as the others follow Sehyoon to the library, Donghun casually, Byeongkwan scuffing his feet. The sprite throws himself into a chair as soon as they’re in a group study room, the only things in the little box room a rickety table surrounded by chairs, the walls all glass. He folds his arms over his chest and puts his feet up on the seat opposite him, sulking.

“What now?”

Donghun chuckles, ruffling a hand through the younger boy’s hair as he takes a seat too, throwing his satchel onto the table. Sehyoon studies him, and the wolf notices.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Sehyoon insists, and then when Donghun just keeps looking at him, shrugs. “I thought you’d make more of a fuss.”

Donghun smirks. “Bee will do enough of that by himself,” he says, slouching further into his chair, bringing out a battered textbook from his bag. “So long as I’m not by myself, I can manage a few chapters.”

Sehyoon smiles, and then yelps as Byeongkwan grabs his arm and wrenches him down into the seat next to him.

“Don’t bruise him," Donghun says mildly, trying to find his page. “If he quits, I’m not taking his place.”

Sehyoon laughs, and shakes out his arm. “He won’t break me that easily,” he reassures, and Donghun snorts. They probably think him terribly boring for this, but he can’t help but smile, at the sight of them in the dusty, sunlit-booth, Donghun frowning down at a page, Byeongkwan twirling a pen irritably through his fingers. 

“Now,” he sighs, bringing his own bag up to his chest, “where should we begin?”

Byeongkwan throws his head back, as if until now he’d been hoping this was all some kind of joke, and he’s unhappy to learn that he will actually have to work. “Why does Chan get to avoid this and I don’t?”

The wolf stops gnawing on the end of his pen long enough to ask, “What’d you score on the quiz?”

Byeongkwan pouts, and says nothing.

“What’re you struggling with?” Sehyoon asks, more gently, patting his knee reassuringly, and the sprite rolls his eyes.

“Staying awake.”

Sehyoon tuts. “Very funny. If you don’t tell me where to start, I’ll just quiz you on everything.”

“Do what you want,” Byeongkwan grumbles. He closes his eyes, arms still crossed over his chest, as if he’s really going to fall asleep, and Sehyoon shrugs and unloads a pack of flashcards tied together with an elastic band, dropping them on the table with a dull  _ thwack. _

Donghun looks up from his page, trying to find the source of the noise, and then barks a laugh. “Are you gonna use those as a weapon or something? Why are there so many?”

Sehyoon picks up the pile and hits Byeongkwan on the top of the head, startling him into opening his eyes.

“Aw!”

“Pay attention,” Sehyoon warns him, holding the flashcards in the air threateningly. Donghun laughs at them both, and goes back to the textbook.

“Right.” Sehyoon pulls a flashcard at random, and turns so Byeongkwan can see one side of it, where he’d penciled a case name in messy, scrawling letters.

Byeongkwan squints. “What am I supposed to do?”

“What was the trial about?” Sehyoon says, tapping the front of the card. “Who’s idea was it? When did it run? What were the findings?”

Byeongkwan’s mouth drops open. “You’re kidding.”

Donghun peaks out from around his book. “You know all of these?”

“Most of them,” Sehyoon shrugs.

Donghun gives an impressed, upside-down smile and selects the top card from the pile. In one corner, it says  _ Developmental, _ and on the front,  _ Preoperational _ .

“Children two to six years of age, lack of logical reasoning, symbols to represent objects, egocentric world-view,” Sehyoon rattles off, and Donghun snorts and nods, throwing the card back into the pile.

“That’s not fair, I knew that one!” Byeongkwan cries. “And you wrote all of these cards, of course  _ you  _ know what’s on them!”

“I’ll give you prompters,” Sehyoon laughs. 

Byeongkwan sits up straighter. “Give me an easier one,” he reasons, round eyes purposefully staring into Sehyoon’s.

Sehyoon shakes his head. “No, you know this one.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“You know it,” Sehyoon says, trying to sound strict, but trying not to laugh, “come on, give me a year.”

“The rat,” Byeongkwan deadpans.

Sehyoon whacks him with a flashcard. “Be serious!”

“ _ Why _ ?” Byeongkwan whines, screwing his eyes shut, curling up into a ball. “What do I get out of this? My grades are  _ fine _ , but here I am being  _ tortured  _ all the same-”

“I’ll give you a reward,” Sehyoon cuts in. He’d babysat for pretty much every family in his neighbourhood, and instinct is taking over, though Byeongkwan definitely looks less thrilled about the bribery and negotiation than the toddlers had. Now he just needs to think of something Byeongkwan would want, because he doubts the usual lollipops and five-minutes-more-before-bedtime-s are going to cut it this time…

“Do fifteen,” he starts, “and I’ll...I’ll…-”

Byeongkwan sulks, looking away again, pouting as he grumbles, “Do what? Give me a gold star?”

And there’s only one thing he can think of. As Byeongkwan sulks and Donghun pretends to ignore them, Sehyoon’s tired mind can invent only one thing that he could use in his favour, the  _ something more _ that’s hovering around them even now, the memory of Chan’s blue eyes burning into his as he tried to deny it, the few hours Sehyoon had spent on the rooftop that night into the early morning trying to figure out why exactly he’d ran from it. He couldn’t decide. So there’s really no reason to run from it now, is there?

“How about a kiss?”

Byeongkwan looks at him suddenly, eyes wide, expression completely blank as he searches Sehyoon’s expression and tries to work out how he could have misheard him. “What?”

“A kiss,” Sehyoon repeats, surprising himself by sounding confident, despite the nerves fluttering in his stomach, making him slightly light-headed. “Get fifteen right and-”

“Deal,” Byeongkwan grins.

Donghun drops his book heavily onto the table. “Do I get to play, too?”

“No,” Sehyoon laughs.

“What?” Donghun throws a put-out glance at Byeongkwan for support, but the sprite just shrugs at him, looking smug. “ _ Why _ ?”

“I saw your score,” Sehyoon says.

Donghun frowns, but doesn’t argue. His book and highlighter sit discarded on the table in front of him, and rather than picking either back up, he sits back, and watches as Sehyoon riffles through cards and selects a few.

“No cheating and picking out the hardest cards,” he says, and Sehyoon shakes his head, quite seriously.

“I’ll only pick ones you need to understand for the assignments,” he says, giving Byeongkwan a questioning glance. The sprite heaves a sigh, but nods, and turns in his chair so he’s sitting facing Sehyoon, so he can see the front of the cards better.

“First card,” Sehyoon says, and holds up a flashcard, a psychological term on one side, the definition on the other.

Chan comes back after the first five, when Sehyoon has started to sweat and  _ seriously _ regret every making this deal, looking bemusedly over at Byeongkwan squinting up at the ceiling as he tries to remember the date of a clinical study. Donghun waves him over insistently, pulling him into a chair on the other side of the table, and Sehyoon gulps as he sees the wolf lean close to the younger boy’s ear, smirking in a way that clearly shows he’s explaining the arrangement. A flicker of surprise passes over Chan’s face, as he glances at Sehyoon, and then he’s laughing, cardboard bakery boxes forgotten as he joins the spectating side and Byeongkwan guesses the right year. Donghun swipes a card, and holds it out for Byeongkwan to see. Chan joins in, too, so the three of them take turns quizzing him, and the thirteenth card finally,  _ finally _ trips him up, as he gets two terms confused, and mixes up their definitions.

Sehyoon makes a buzzing between his teeth, like a game-show quiz host, and shrugs. “Guess you lost the bet,” he says, trying not to sound too relieved.

Byeongkwan curses, grabbing a plastic cup from the tray Chan had brought and twirling the straw around, ice-cubes clinking. “Give me another one.”

The three of them gape at him. Donghun shakes his head slowly, incredulous.

Sehyoon holds up a hand. “I said fifteen,” he points out.

Byeongkwan shrugs, pushing another card into his hands.“You didn’t say in a row. Give me another.”

Sehyoon looks hopelessly around the table even though he already knows he’ll find no allies there. Chan laughs at him, outwardly, and Donghun shrugs, a cunning smirk on his lips. Sehyoon scoffs a laugh. “Come on-”

“Don’t you want me to do well?” Byeongkwan asks, pouting in fake offence, and Sehyoon flounders for something to say too long, giving Chan a chance to pick up a card and hold it out for Byeongkwan. He gets it right. Sehyoon scrambles to find a difficult one amongst the pile, feeling slightly breathless, and Byeongkwan pouts at it thoughtfully.

He’s quiet for long enough that Sehyoon thinks he might give up, but then he rattles off the answer, word for word-  _ exactly _ word for word, as if he was reading the answer through the card. Sehyoon huffs, and turns the card around, but even if he holds it up to the light, he can’t see through it, and Byeongkwan smirks triumphantly at him. 

“How’d you cheat?”

The innocent, hurt look Byeongkwan gives him isn’t even trying to be convincing. “Don’t you think I’m smart enough to know by myself?”

“Not with you smirking like that.” It’s Donghun that gives them away- Sehyoon sees him out of the corner of his eye smirking at Chan, and turns himself to see the blue eyed boy trying to hold a laugh.

“What’d you do?”

“I don’t know,” Chan grins at him. “What could I have done?”

“You told him  _ somehow _ .”

Chan doesn’t deny it, just holds his hands up in a shrug. “Can you prove it?”

Byeongkwan giggles, and Sehyoon turns back to him, seeing the elated grin on his face and shoving one of his shoulders gently. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself, cheat.”

“I won, didn’t I?”

Sehyoon raises a brow at him. “ _ Did you?” _

The sprite lazily gestures to the other side of the table. “We could put it to vote, if you’d like.”

But Sehyoon’s already rolling his eyes, knowing there’s no way out now all of them are against him. “Whatever. It’s my own fault for making this stupid game, anyway.”

“Mh-hmm,” Byeongkwan agrees, nodding as he leans forward in his chair, hands clutching the seat between his knees to stop himself pitching forward. Sehyoon watches him warily, then sighs, swinging himself out from under the table so he can face the other boy. It’s suddenly much worse, with Byeongkwan staring back at him, so he closes his eyes and gestures for the sprite to move instead, hearing him snicker.

“Try not to scare him away, Bee?” He hears Donghun say, and then his eyes are fluttering open, surprised at the sudden sensation of lips on his. He’s only aware of the softness and the warmth of skin on skin, and then it’s over, Byeongkwan giving him barely a peck before he’s leaning away to giggle at how Sehyoon’s cheeks are flushed pink. The other two are laughing, and it’s catching- Sehyoon can only manage to look annoyed for a moment before he’s giggling too, and slapping away the hand Byeongkwan points at his red face, unable to hold back a grin.


	12. Question Countdown

Chan manages to convince them all to go out to dinner again, a combination of his promising to pay (for Byeongkwan and Donghun) and promising to keep it tame (for Sehyoon.) Sehyoon had only meant to keep the alcohol consumption down, but Chan seems to think he’s referring to something else, and the halfling can feel the tips of his ears burning as Chan smirks at him and vows to be on his 'best behaviour,' for whatever that's worth. It’s the same place as the first time they’d all ate together, and the same menu, because Donghun still refuses to decide on something more specific than _everything._ This time, though, Sehyoon’s pushed into the booth by Byeongkwan behind him and, rather than his usual seat at the end, finds himself alarmingly situated between Donghun and Chan, as if even where he sits is meant to prevent anything dangerous from happening before the food arrives. Byeongkwan had been clinging to him all day, since he’d made him blush in the library, but now he just laughs at Sehyoon’s slightly panicked expression and settles down the other side of Donghun.

“Now,” the sprite breathes, “what about drinks?”

Donghun throws an amused glance at Sehyoon, and chuckles. “I’d be careful of him now, you know,” he says, voice low and lilting, and Sehyoon realises he’s talking about him. “He’s worked out how to bribe you.”

Byeongkwan gives an exaggerated gasp and fixes Sehyoon with a pleading look, playing along with the joke as if he has any control over any of them. Sehyoon raises a brow, and he’s sure he’d be annoyed by the teasing, want to rise to the challenge, if he weren’t remembering how soft Byeongkwan had been, when he hadn’t expected him to be.

He finds he doesn’t have much of an appetite, though Donghun is ravenous beside him, and he picks at his food until the wolf just shrugs and stops trying to pile it up on his plate. Byeongkwan _had_ ordered drinks, though just one for each of them, and Sehyoon drinks his the fastest, taking thoughtful sips at first as he ignores the food, and then- when he spots Byeongkwan glancing at him one too many times- for something to do to calm his nerves.

“You’re quiet,” Chan murmurs, turning his face only slightly as if not to alert the other two. “More so than usual.”

Though he knows it’s been obvious for a while how little attention he’d been paying to their conversation, Sehyoon asks, “Am I?”

Blue eyes flicker over his face. 

“Nothing’s wrong?”

Sehyoon shakes his head. “No, just...thinking.”

Chan nods, accepting this, and takes another almost-cooked slice from the grill. But Donghun’s caught on now, and he jostles Sehyoon with his elbow, knowingly enough that Sehyoon considers making a fuss to change seats and get away from him before he says anything embarrassing.

 _I like the way you look at him_ , he remembers the older boy saying. _Like you’re trying to see through him._

Donghun looks far too amused.

“Stop that.”

Softly, Donghun pokes the end of his nose. “You looked like you were in your own world.” Sehyoon rolls his eyes, and the wolf chuckles, turning back to the grill, tongs in hand, though his teasing doesn’t stop. “Are we boring you? You’re not about to bring out those flashcards again, are you?”

Byeongkwan peaks around his other side. “Flashcards?”

With a huff, Sehyoon sets his glass down. “Let’s play a different game.”

“ _Game_ ,” Chan echoes, suddenly paying attention.

Donghun wiggles his brows, and suggests, “Truth or dare?”

“With you,” Sehyoon shivers, “never. I was thinking of something else.”

There’s a beat where the other two realise what he’s talking about, but Chan had been raising a glass to his lips, and it’s only when he’s lowering it again does he catch Sehyoon staring at him. He’s only surprised for a half-second, and then he laughs, and pushes his empty glass away. “That’s a dangerous look you’re giving me, you know.”

"I think it’s your turn to give some answers.”

“Is it, now?” The waiter returns before he can say more, though, and they pause the conversation, until the table has been cleared, and they’re alone again.

Chan sits back against the plush leather of the booth and levels Sehyoon with a curious look. “You have questions?”

_So damn many._

“A few.”

A flicker of hesitation flashes across Chan’s face, but then he smiles, and covers it up, as if it were never there at all. “So what’s in it for me, if I answer them? Byeongkwan got his reward, after all.”

“You don’t want me to know?” Sehyoon asks.

There’s a pause, as Chan looks at him, intently and for long enough without expression that Sehyoon thinks it might be some kind of test, to see whether he’ll look away. He doesn’t.

“I didn’t say that,” Chan says eventually.

“Well, what _do_ you want?”

Donghun snorts into his tumbler. “I wouldn’t ask him that, if I were you.”

Sehyoon _had_ immediately regretted it, but for once, Chan himself doesn’t seem to know the answer, and he only gives Donghun a sour look before glancing away, frowning thoughtfully. Then he sighs. “If it’s up to me, I’d like to get roaringly drunk before you ask those questions.”

Donghun is instantly won over, of course. “It _is_ only fair if he gets to decide-” 

“We all have classes tomorrow," Sehyoon protests, though he's too surprised by the suggestion to really feel annoyed at the breaking of their promise.

Chan shrugs, already getting to his feet. “Not anymore we don’t.”

He disappears to take care of the bill, and Byeongkwan starts jumping up and down in his seat. Clearly, it’s not just Donghun who’s excited about this change of plan. Sehyoon sighs, but lets himself be pulled out of the booth all the same, Donghun wrapping an arm around his waist as they walk. He tries not to lose himself too much in the night that follows, hopping from bar to bar, but it’s difficult, with them all in such high spirits, with something wicked burning the back of his throat, with Byeongkwan’s eyes glittering in the deep blue light of a club as they dance. It takes him a few drinks to feel at ease enough to join them, but he does, hardly aware of his movements with Byeongkwan twirling drunkenly around him, shrieking laughter, or Donghun murmuring lyrics into his ear, Chan getting bored of one place after another and leading them down more strobe-lit rabbit holes.

They end up, eventually- unsurprisingly- on the rooftop.

But there's another ghost hanging around their usual haunt now, and Junhee turns around where he leans against the barrier, his frown turning into a darker scowl when he sees who's climbing the stairs.

"Fledgling!" Donghun cries, throwing an arm out toward him. "What a coincidence."

They'd all long since forgotten their promise of good behaviour- when Chan had said _roaringly drunk,_ he’d _really_ meant it- and even Sehyoon's swaying on his feet, Byeongkwan clinging to his arm doing nothing at all to stabilise him.

Junhee sighs, stepping away from the edge to cross his arms. "Is there any way to stop you all showing up where I don't want you?"

Byeongkwan holds a finger up in the air like a condescending lecturer, the image only made more amusing by the way half of his hair sticks straight up where his bobble has come loose, and the red smears of lipstick around his mouth. "I'm pretty sure this was our place first-"

Jun scoffs. "You don't _own_ the rooft- whatever. I'm leaving."

Chan had stopped as soon as they’d spotted the vampire, which means that now they’re all standing by the doorway, blocking the exit. "Join us."

The vampire rolls his eyes. "I'll pass."

"Why?" Donghun laughs, tugging a hand through the long strands of his hair. "It's so much better drinking by yourself?"

"Yeah,” Junhee sighs, and Sehyoon notices the beer can in his hand for the first time. “That’s pretty much it. Now are you going to let me through?"

Chan tips his head, his usual wide, endearing smile only more wide and endearing in it’s drunkenness. "Don't you want to know all my secrets?"

Junhee frowns. "What?"

"We're playing a game," Sehyoon supplies. Only when he realises Junhee's still glaring at him darkly enough to make his skin crawl does he realise he's waiting for more information. "I'm getting Chan to answer my questions."

No more in the know, Jun runs his eyes over them all, standing in various states of disarray in the dim light of the doorway. "That doesn't sound like a very fun game."

Chan raises the bottle he’d been holding up into the air, almost sloshing the toxic contents onto the gravel. "That's why we've got these."

Junhee eyes the bottle with narrowed eyes, glancing at the pack of cans Donghun is hugging to his chest, Byeongkwan holding bottles of his own in each hand. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Worried about us, are you?" Donghun asks, and then howls with laughter as Junhee glowers and crushes the can in his hand. The wolf’s the first to step away from the door, dropping down onto the middle of the roof with a happy groan. Junhee doesn’t move, just keeps staring down at him from a few paces away, and Donghun smirks up at him. "Come on, tough guy, what's the worst that could happen?"

Jun gestures behind him to the edge of the roof. "Would you like a demonstration?"

The wolf chuckles. "Maybe later."

Byeongkwan slips his arm out of Sehyoon's so he can sit against Donghun's side, and Sehyoon hesitates, but then follows, dropping to the cool concrete and feeling relief course through him when the world stops tilting so severely underneath him.

Chan’s still by the open door, watching Junhee watching them all. With a laugh, he steps forward, and the bottle sloshes again as he holds it out. Junhee raises a brow at him, and he shrugs. “D’you really have anything better to do?”

Jun clicks his tongue, and then swipes the bottle from his hand fast enough to make Chan flinch. The swig he takes is long enough to make it very clear how much he appreciates them interrupting his solitude, but he sits, back against the barrier, not quite in the little ring they’d made on the asphalt, with his legs stretched out so his boots are level with Donghun’s crossed knees. Chan looks horribly pleased with himself when he sits beside Sehyoon, though he’s careful enough to at least maintain the safe distance between them and the vampire.

"Isn't this an unexpected turn of events,” Donghun sighs, opening a can as he looks around their group. “Our little gang of misfits increases by one. I feel all warm and gooey inside."

"That'll be the liquor," Byeongkwan tells him, but Donghun hardly seems to hear him, focused on the vampire, a happy, smug grin stretching his lips.

"If you keep looking at me like that,” the vampire says, “your _insides_ are going to become your _outsides_."

Donghun almost falls back, he's suddenly laughing so hard, but when he manages to catch his breath, there's a more lucid, knowing glint to the amusement in his eyes. "You talk a big game, fledgling. You ever actually been in a fight?"

One of Jun’s dark brows quirks. "Do I seem like a guy who pulls his punches?"

"I mean after."

Sehyoon winces. It’s clear what _after_ refers to, though Jun’s just shrugging, and taking another swig of the stolen bottle. "What's the point in getting into fights everyone knows you're going to win?'

Donghun clearly doesn’t buy it. "I knew you were soft,” he laughs, and then almost hits himself in the face with the can he’d been trying to sip from.

Byeongkwan snickers, taking the can and replacing it with one of the bottles he’d been holding. "Takes one to know one,” he smiles, as Donghun takes a grateful swig and manages to keep all of his teeth.

"Don't want to hurt anyone too bad?” he asks, eyes still lingering on Junhee’s half-in-shadow form. “Scared you won't know your own strength 'till it's too late?"

The vampire's eyes slide away, to the blue eyed boy who’d been watching him so intently since he sat down. "I didn't realise it was me we were interrogating."

Sehyoon sits straighter, as if he’d suddenly woken up from a heavy sleep, remembering why they’re here. “Right! My questions.”

Chan sighs, snatching a can from the pack sitting in the middle of them all. “Be merciful.”

His tone is the usual smooth, confident teasing, though Sehyoon had saw him trying to drown himself in alcohol a few hours prior and realised pretty quickly that Chan’s reluctance is very, very real. It’s not just mysteriousness, not just wanting to make him curious. He’d really wanted to keep it from him, whatever it is.

_Merciful._

“Why don’t you want people to know?”

Chan sniffs. “Misconceptions.”

Junhee laughs darkly as he takes another swig, turning all of their attention on him. “Are all of your answers going to be that vague?”

A smile flashes under too-blue eyes. “Unless you ask very nicely.”

Jun rolls his eyes. 

“You’ve used up two of your questions already,” Chan says.

Sehyoon huffs, accepting the bottle Byeongkwan presses into his hands. “There's a limit? Crap, I mean-”

“There’s a limit to everything,” Chan says derisively. “You get twenty.” Then he smirks. “Seventeen, now.”

“Fine. Surely it won’t take that many.” Sehyoon takes a sip from his can and adds, “Byeongkwan can give me hints.” 

Chan’s eyes flicker to the sprite, who shrugs easily, as if to say _I never said I was on your side._ Junhee takes a can and settles back against the barrier, pretending to ignore them all.

“OK.” _Where to start?_ He’d wondered ever since the party, when a Donghun in only slight better shape than he’s in now had leaned over the side of a bathtub and smirked at him. _I like the way you look at him. Like you’re trying to see through him_. He hadn’t been very successful, so far.

“How old are you?”

Byeongkwan snickers. "This is starting to sound like your first date."

Sehyoon flushes, but ignores him, seeing Chan give him a strange look, as if he’d expected something else. “The same age as you, I’d imagine. A few months younger.”

“But you’re not human,” Sehyoon says. Chan just blinks at him, blue eyes bored, and he sighs, and corrects himself, “But you’re not human, _are you_?”

“Not exactly,” Chan says, answering only now it’s a question. Byeongkwan pouts at him for the vagueness though, and he rolls his eyes. “No.”

Sehyoon frowns in confusion. “But you almost got yourself killed by a ghoul?”

There’s a laugh that’s too quiet to be Donghun’s and too cold to be Byeongkwan’s, and Jun adds drily, “Not very smart, are you?”

“Thirteen left,” Chan says shortly. “You’re wasting your questions.”

Sehyoon curses and sets his drink aside, trying to think straight, though his head is still foggy with alcohol, and his thoughts tangled together. And then Junhee laughs suddenly and says, “If I threw you off this roof right now, would it do any damage?”

Donghun splutters around a mouthful of liquor, and Byeongkwan jolts away from him.

Sehyoon, in a sudden drunken act of stupidity, angrily kicks at Junhee’s boot with his own and cries, “Stop wasting our questions!”

“ _Our_ questions?” Jun echoes. “Why d’you think I give a damn?”

Donghun’s voice is rough from coughing, and slurring at the edges with all of the drink, but he manages to sound smug as he says, “You’re still here aren’t you?”

Junhee wiggles the bottle in the air. Byeongkwan rolls his eyes.

“Yes,” Chan says, pouting irritably. “Yes, it would do quite a lot of damage.”

“Now I only have twelve,” Sehyoon sulks, sullenly tipping his can over and watching weak beer puddle on the asphalt.

“Relax,” Junhee laughs, as if he’s enjoying being the cause of the tantrum. “I’ll give you a hint, if you’re so desperate.”

Sehyoon gapes at him. “You _know_?”

Junhee taps the side of his neck with two fingers, prompting in Sehyoon’s drink-slow brain a sudden memory of him tearing his fangs out of Chan’s neck, eyes wide in shock. He must have figured it out already.

“I don’t need your help,” Sehyoon grumbles quietly.

Byeongkwan tilts his head, and Sehyoon looks to his side to see a thoughtful pout on the sprite’s face, eyes flickering over Junhee’s features. “You can’t know just from that,” he says mildly.

“Course I can.”

Byeongkwan considers him for a moment, and then taps his lips thoughtfully. “Are you sure?" he wonders aloud. "I mean, what if you’re wrong?”

Jun frowns. “I’m not wrong.”

Donghun’s realised what the sprite's trying to do now, though, and tries to hide a grin as he joins in. “But it doesn't really count if you don’t know what he is _specifically._ ”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jun demands.

Byeongkwan shrugs. “Well, there’s loads, isn’t there?" His tone is perfectly blank, as if it's so obvious he isn't even going to argue, and entirely effective- a muscle in Junhee's jaw jumps at the condescension. "It’s not as if you can know what kind just from his blood.”

Sehyoon’s brows draw down over his eyes. _Loads?_ _What kind?_ “Huh?”

“He’s Fae,” Jun growls, “that’s all I need to know.”

“He- _Fae?”_

Junhee snorts, and it’s clear the alcohol is catching up to him too, his sudden bout of wrath replaced just as quickly by wry amusement at Sehyoon's shriek. “Not a very good one.”

Chan scowls. “You’re not a very good vampire, either,” he says, and it’s so petty and ineloquent that Sehyoon thinks he really is mad now, that they really have pushed one of his buttons.

“You’re really Fae?”

“Eleven,” Chan says dully, not bothering to answer.

“Fuck." Sehyoon tries to get the stuttering cogs of his drunken brain working again. "OK," he says, nodding, "OK. Fae. You don’t look Fae.”

Chan's brows rise. “Gee, thanks.”

“That’s not-”

“Get on with it already," Chan sighs. His blue eyes seem to glow in the darkness, colder in his irritation, and Sehyoon's attention snags on them and another question is wasted before he's even aware of it.

“How did you change your eyes?”

“I didn’t _change_ them. They’ve always been this color.”

“But they were brown before," Sehyoon insists, but even in his drunken state, he corrects himself. "I _saw_ them as brown.”

Chan inclines his head as if relenting the point. “Because I wanted you to.”

The same way he’d wanted the boy from this morning to apologise, the same way he’d _wanted_ Byeongkwan to win their game in the library.

“So this is what you really look like?”

There's a secretive edge to Chan's amused grin. “Not quite. Nine.”

The number suddenly feels too small. Sehyoon scrambles for something more concrete, a question that’d make for a better answer, that Chan can’t swerve, but he can’t think of anything. Junhee sighs at his floundering, and shuffles.

“You’re trying to look human,” he says, careful to keep it as statement even when he’s still not entirely sure it’s true. “Why?”

“It’s what I do,” Chan says simply.

_A Fae that tries to look human?_

Jun looks just as nonplussed as Sehyoon feels, this time, and he realises that for all of his bravado, the vampire is just as in the dark as he is, maybe even more so. He’d been human so recently as a few months ago. Did he even know things like Byeongkwan, things like Chan, existed before then? It seems like he’d learned fast, but still not fast enough.

“Are your parents like you?”

Chan quirks a brow, a gesture that look more like acknowledgement than surprise, like Sehyoon is finally asking the right questions. “My real ones? Sure.”

_Real ones?_

“But that’s...you can’t be.”

The smirk Chan gives him is almost sad, though, and he thinks he's right.

“Have you finally figured me out, halfling?”

A Fae that doesn’t look Fae, that plants ideas in people’s heads, that can influence their perspectives whenever they want to. There’s only one thing he can think of that fits all of the criteria.

But-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....ok yes it was annoying of me to end on a cliff hanger i know i'm sorry! i had to split this chapter in half somehow it was waaaaaaay too long 🙏 🙏 last guesses for chan, everybody, last guesses for chan, the reveal is in the next chapter 😯 😯 i will try to post it soon so there's not a long wait 🤭


	13. Company

“Changelings aren’t meant...they don’t _survive_ , do they?”

Byeongkwan nestles closer to Donghun’s side, wrapping an arm around his waist. The wolf rests his chin in Byeongkwan’s golden curls. Junhee’s dark eyes are watchful, intent as they travel around the group, taking in their reactions. Chan had barely blinked.

“Thought I’d stick around and cause some trouble,” he smirks. But the secret is out now, and though he doesn’t exactly look thrilled, he gives up on the vagueness and mystery, and gives in to Sehyoon’s curious frown. “Usually human parents don’t know how to care for us because they don’t know what we are. The family they left me just happened to be…-” he pauses, searching for the word, and then fondly settles on, “unconventional. They made sure I pulled through.”

Sehyoon’s eyes widen. “Your parents know?” He can’t help but think the way Junhee’s gaze suddenly slides away from them looks slightly bitter.

Chan nods. “From the moment they saw me in their nursery.”

“You'll need to introduce me sometime,” Byeongkwan tells him, his usual electric grin lacking most of its slyness, but still a valiant effort at lightening the mood. “They’d love me.”

Like everything Byeongkwan says, it’s the right thing- Chan chuckles, eyes focused a little above their heads as if he’s trying to imagine it. Whatever he pictures makes him smile. “They certainly would.”

Byeongkwan snuggles back into Donghun’s side, pleased, but Sehyoon’s too busy watching Chan, as the Fae sees him looking and the distant, amused smile drops a little.

“What’s the point of hiding?” Sehyoon asks. After all of the reluctance, it seems almost anticlimactic. He doesn’t understand what all the secrecy was for. “If your parents know, and- and Byeongkwan and Donghun knew, didn’t they?”

“Sure,” Chan shrugs, not denying it. “I could look Fae if I wanted to. But where’s the fun in that?”

Donghun rolls his eyes in a way that manages to look appreciative. “You got tired of all of your adoring fans, did you?”

He’d been joking, but Chan frowns, and answers quite seriously, “I’d prefer the people around me to actually care about something other than my appearance, as crazy as that sounds.”

“Guess that explains all the ugly ties,” Jun says drily, and Byeongkwan throws his head back with laughter.

Sehyoon thinks about the party, where he’d first noticed people’s reactions to Chan, how he wasn’t the only one in the room who couldn’t seem to look away. He’d thought Chan was plain then, somehow _average_ , even when he couldn’t help but notice his boyish features, the perfect symmetry of his face, his wide grin and smooth voice and the way he held himself.

“You’re not a very good pretender.”

Chan’s mouth parts slightly, in what looks like genuine shock, and Donghun snickers. “I _did_ try to tell him that.”

To his surprise, Chan nods, eyes curious as they stick on Sehyoon’s a beat too long. “He said you might see through me.”

Sehyoon coughs into a fist and scrambles for something casual to say that might redeem himself and somehow finds himself stuttering, “All the brown didn’t suit you. I mean- I guess it did- I just mean-”

Donghun cuts in with the answer, before Sehyoon can think of how to phrase it himself. “Even when he’s trying his hardest to be boring, he still can't quite manage it?”

“Yeah,” Sehyoon nods, by now accustomed to the feeling of always being one step behind. It isn’t the first time Donghun had guessed what he was thinking, almost before Sehyoon knew himself. “Exactly that.”

“Well now you know,” Chan grumbles, throwing up his hands, as if it were an insult. “I won’t have to keep _pretending,_ will I?”

Nonplussed, Sehyoon stares at him. “Would that really be so bad?”

The empty can Chan had been holding is rolled across the rooftop and hits the barrier with a dull clang. “People tend to trust me more when I’m boring and nonthreatening. Strangely, humans don't take kindly to things pretending to be one of them, and a Fae raised by humans will be- well," he laughs without mirth, eyes sliding to Sehyoon's, "I'm sure you can imagine how that might go.”

He'd never imagined he might have anything in common with Chan, perhaps except the company they both liked to keep. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, to think of the younger boy as someone out of reach, first plain and unassuming and then just.. _different_. Charming and sure of himself and someone to be curious about. Whatever he was, Sehyoon had thought, Chan would be least likely to sympathise with the _halfling_ who never knows his place. But he was wrong about that too, apparently. Chan seems no less unattainable, but maybe a little less of an enigma. One of the barriers between them has fallen away.

It’s so late now that the darkness is no longer true blackness, just beginning to lighten in preparation for the sun’s rising, and the road far, far below them is quiet, no cars or people or even aeroplanes above to break the silence. They sit, breathing in the cold air, and Sehyoon can’t decide whether it’s relaxing or stifling, until Jun’s asking suddenly: “What happened to the boy? The one you replaced.”

“See?” Chan scoffs, and his voice is just above a casual volume, but for someone usually so collected, it sounds like a yell, and the look in his blue-ice eyes is scalding. “This is why I don’t want people to know. When they know, suddenly I’m this cold, inhuman thing that’s taking someone else’s place just by _existing_.” Junhee doesn’t react, his expression impassive, even as Chan’s sudden anger cools, and shifts closer to melancholy. “It wasn't my decision. My parents don’t blame me for taking his place, and it took me long enough to agree with them.” He seems to realise what he’s just said- his face twists with disgust as he looks down at the bottles littering the asphalt. He sighs, suddenly spent. “Roaringly drunk wasn’t drunk enough. I’m going to bed.”

He tries a few times to get to his feet and eventually succeeds, though he doesn’t look very happy about it, and he veers so severely that Sehyoon has to throw up a hand for him to grab so he doesn’t fall back down again. Chan clings to it without looking at him.

“Come on.”

It’s unclear who he’s speaking to, and Donghun and Byeongkwan glance at each other, and then at Sehyoon and Jun, and seem to come to a silent agreement that they can’t both leave, even if it looks like they both want to.

Chan notices, somehow. “Bee.”

The sprite glances at Donghun over his shoulder, waiting for a nod, and then scrambles to his feet, more efficiently than Chan had. They leave together, one of Byeongkwan’s arms around Chan’s shoulders despite the difference in their height, and only when they're gone do the three remaining on the rooftop look back at each other. Junhee’s stare is almost challenging, as if he expects them to turn on him now the atmosphere has broken.

“You stuck around longer than I thought you would,” Donghun tells him. 

Jun just sniffs, and lets his eyes slide shut.

“It was the blood, wasn’t it?” Sehyoon asks. He’s sobered up just enough now that he can feel his drunkenness transitioning into a merciless hangover, but he doesn’t want to leave the roof, the strange bubble of comfort he feels they’d made sitting up here for so long, with Donghun still cradling the last beer can and Jun opening his eyes to look at him- look, not glare. “That’s why you told me to stay away. Because you knew he was Fae.”

“Because I didn’t know what he was,” Jun corrects, seeing the protective glare Donghun has turned on him. “I’ve never...I didn’t understand what it was. It wasn’t exactly Fae, but it wasn’t like the humans I’d…” He trails off, not finishing his sentence, and Donghun snickers.

“You really are a poor excuse for a vamp, you know.”

“And you’re a self-destructive alpha without a pack,” Jun says, pointing to Donghun’s face with the hand that holds his empty bottle, and then turns to point at Sehyoon, “and a half-human who’s _almost_ good at gardening.”

Sehyoon huffs, too tired to be annoyed, somehow seeing that from Jun it’s just another casual dig, an offensive mechanism he can’t seem to switch off, even if it sounds like he doesn’t mean it. “Seems like you’re in good company, then,” he says. Junhee almost smiles.

Birdsong startles them all into glancing up, staring at the blackbird that had flown onto the barrier at the other end of the roof as if trying to convince themselves it isn’t a hallucination. It flutters away again just as quickly, and Donghun sighs, running a hand through tangled hair.

“Alright. I should get back.” He pushes himself to his feet, and smiles down at Sehyoon. “And _you_ look like you could do with some sleep.”

“Charming,” Sehyoon sighs, but he accepts the hand Donghun holds out and lets himself be dragged up, legs wobbling under him for a moment. “You’re not coming?”

Junhee’s already closed his eyes again, head resting back against the barrier behind him. “Get lost,” he says.

“If you insist on staying out here to shrivel in the sun,” Donghun tells him, as they start toward the door, “clean up the mess, would you?”

He just manages to duck into the safety of the doorway as a glass bottle shatters against the wall, exactly where his head had been. His chuckle echoes in the narrow stairwell as Sehyoon barely keeps them both upright until they get to Donghun’s floor.

He tries to think of something suitable to say in way of a goodbye as they walk. Everything he can come up with seems insufficient after a night that’d revealed so much, but he’s saved the trouble of having to sound articulate and sentimental when Donghun reaches the door to his room, pats down his pockets, and curses, loud enough to wake the entire floor.

“My key!”

Sehyon shushes him, with a cautious glance around the corridor. “You don’t have it?”

“I gave it to Chan because Byeongkwan had the other and we’re always together,” Donghun whines, not lowering his volume, and Sehyoon tries to knock quietly, but the wolf just shakes his head and pulls his arm down. “Nothing will wake them now, I’ll have to stay with you.”

“With _me_? In my room?”

The older boy shrugs lazily. “Where else am I going to sleep? Pretty sure if I broke into Jun's room, they'd find me in a ditch somewhere a few days later.”

“But- but-there’s only one bed in my room.”

Donghun rolls his eyes. “I promise not to hog the covers,” he says, with a hand over his heart, and then he’s taking Sehyoon’s arm and marching them both down the flights of stairs and corridors to Sehyoon’s own door, and only then does he release him, to cross his arms impatiently as Sehyoon scrambles for his key.

He panics as the door swings open, though it’s ridiculous- Donghun’s dorm isn’t very different to his own- and his hesitation only gives Donghun the opportunity to slip into the room before him, and immediately crash onto the bed. As he groans happily, Sehyoon crosses the threshold and closes the door gently behind them. The small room only seems smaller now there’s someone else in it, and he’s conscious of every tiny detail of it as Donghun casts a cursory, curious glance around. He takes in the books littering the desk, and the cork board and cushion and rug and every little change Sehyoon had made to try to make it seem more homely, and then his gaze lands on the plant-pot row on the windowsill. He smiles.

“It smells good in here.” Sehyoon hovers by the desk as Donghun seizes one of the pillows, shifting a little closer to the wall so there’s more space between them. “What is it?”

“Lavender,” Sehyoon says quietly. Donghun doesn’t seem to realise none of the pots on the sill are growing anything purple, and Sehyoon sets his phone and keys down on the desk, and the next glance he throws towards the bed shows the wolf has his eyes closed, face turned into a pillow, back against the wall. 

He’d like nothing more than to fall asleep as quick as possible, but the smell of all of the food and alcohol still clings to his clothes, and he’s uncomfortable, so Sehyoon forces himself to grab a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt from his dresser. 

_I am_ not _going to be self-conscious about my_ _pyjamas_ , he promises himself, as he stares at his reflection. His eyes look red and glassy, his hair a mess, the panes of his face seeming more hollow with fatigue. He’s self-conscious about just about everything but his pyjamas.

 _Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just Donghun._ Surely, the boy you’d dragged high out of a bathtub at a stranger’s party isn’t allowed to judge you for _anything_.

He eventually manages to force himself out of the bathroom. Donghun snores softly from the bed, both arms clutching the pillow under his head like it’s a teddy bear. 

Sehyoon smiles, and settles down beside him. Even in his sleep, Donghun seeks him out, an arm reaching to pull him closer, and by the time Sehyoon has relaxed enough to close his eyes, the older boy is curled up against his side, head on Sehyoon’s chest, one arm around his middle. The bed is too small for both of them, and it’s hot with another body pressed close to his, but Sehyoon drifts asleep almost instantly, and sleeps deeper than he had in months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dramatic slow clapping* for the clever bastards who managed to figure out what he was before this chapter. gold stars for you ⭐⭐⭐


	14. Morning

Sehyoon wakes up to the smell of coffee, the sound of low conversation, and the sensation of gentle fingers being carded through his hair.

“You know, like the cherries-”

“You hadn’t noticed it on him before?”

It’s Chan’s voice, and the sound of it in his room makes Sehyoon open his eyes- instantly regretting it, as the pain in his head comes crashing down on him. He groans, and Donghun, mid-sentence, gasps, and the feeling of fingers through his hair stops. Sehyoon looks up, and realises Donghun’s sitting back against the wall, Sehyoon’s head in his lap, blinking down at him.

“You’re awake.”

He’d been speaking quietly, but even the low mumble increases the pressure behind Sehyoon’s eyes, and he’s too suddenly aware of the pain throbbing at his temples, the dryness of his throat, the ache in his limbs. 

“I’m _dying,_ ” he corrects, and Donghun laughs as he shuffles and throws an arm over the wolf’s legs in an attempt to block out the light, burying his face in the crook of his elbow.

“Drink,” Chan tells him. “I brought you this.” Sehyoon peeks over the edge of his arm to see Chan sitting in his desk chair, turned to face them on the bed, in his usual brown jacket and shirt, not a hair out of place. He’s holding a steaming styrofoam cup out, and another sits in a tray on Sehyoon’s desk.

With a sigh, Sehyoon tries to work up enough strength to push himself up to a sitting position, only to feel himself stuck as Donghun’s fingers tighten in the collar of his t-shirt.

Chan rolls his eyes. “Let him up,” he says, and though it’s mild and uncompelling, Donghun obliges, loosening his grip and returning Sehyoon’s glare with an amused smirk.

The cup Chan passes him is just cool enough to sip from, the gentle taste surprising as it hits Sehyoon’s tongue.

“No coffee this time?” he asks, taking the take-away lid off and squinting down at the green liquid within. Tea.

Chan shrugs, turning to hand the other cup to Donghun. “You don’t need the caffeine this time,” he says, and when he sits back, he can see Sehyoon frowning, trying to work out his meaning. He takes another sip of his tea and winces, and Chan laughs under his breath, beckoning him forward. Though his still looks confused, Sehyoon shuffles so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed and lets Chan lean closer, fingers cooling against his forehead. The pain recedes slowly, the pleasant numb that takes its place spreading out like ink soaking across paper.

“You- how did you do that?”

“The pain’s still there,” Chan shrugs, as he sits back. “I just hid it from you.” He does the same with Donghun, when the wolf sets aside his tea and draws one of Chan’s hands up to his neck, and Sehyoon watches the frown fade from the older boy’s face.

“I guess this explains why you always look so put-together,” he says, eyes flickering over Chan again, seeing no dark circles or redness in his eyes, no signs at all of the night before.

The younger boy spins the desk chair so his knees hit the wall under the window, reaching up to take one of the plant pots from its perch. “It’s just persuasion. People see what I want them to see.”

He appraises the little basil plant in his hand with a smile, rubbing one of the soft leaves between finger and thumb, before setting it back beside the others.

“Where’s Byeongkwan?”

Donghun chuckles. “He’ll sleep until noon at least.”

Sehyoon nods, swirling the remains of his drink around the cup, and then his head whips back up to Chan lounging in front of his desk as if seeing him for the first time. “Um, how did you even get in here?” he asks, and both of them turn to him in surprise, and laugh. “Can you do the thing with the locks too, or-”

“I _could_ , sure,” Chan shrugs, “but actually you just forgot to lock your door.”

 _Shit._

The panic must show on his face, because Chan’s brows rise, and his lips turn up at the corners. “I woke up and Donghun wasn’t there, so I thought I’d come check up on him.”

Sehyoon tries not to react to the idea that Chan had just assumed to find them both in his room- and had been right- as the Fae takes his empty cup from him and sets it on the desk.

“Sorry about that, by the way,” he says. “I should have remembered to give Donghun his key back before I went to bed.” His eyes stray to Donghun, who’s staring out of the window as if the tiny path of blue sky demands all of his attention. “You should have just knocked. You know I’m a light sleeper.”

Donghun winces, and Sehyoon turns on him, agape, eyes wide.

“Donghun!”

Chan chuckles, as the wolf gives an apologetic pout that does nothing to stop Sehyoon whacking him with a pillow. “He didn’t tell you that, huh?”

“No!” Sehyoon cries, punctuating the word with another whack. He should really have known- now it's confirmed Chan as a Fae can pull some of the same tricks Byeongkwan can, the only person who _needs_ a key is Donghun- but he hadn't been thinking clearly.

“Why are you hitting me! I only- wanted-stop-aw!” Donghun grabs the pillow and thrusts it toward Chan, who catches it to his chest with a startled look. “I just didn’t want you to be alone!”

“I’m fine by myself, Donghun, I’m not a child!”

“I am _perfectly aware_ -”

Chan clears his throat, effectively cutting off any more arguing with a bored expression. “Are you two done?”

Sehyoon flushes, looking down at his hands, and Donghun crosses his arms, sulking.

“Good.” Chan's gaze flickers slyly over Sehyoon’s face and he adds, quietly as he stands, “It’s not as if you were really annoyed anyway.”

Donghun is caught between a smirk and wide-eyed surprise, and Sehyoon sighs. Now Chan is no longer trying to hide what he is, he guesses he should be prepared for tricks like this in the future. Nothing’s sacred anymore.

A glance at his phone screen tells Sehyoon that _noon_ is a lot closer than he’d thought.

“We’ve missed half of our class already,” he sighs.

“Pity,” Donghun nods, expression all sympathy and sadness. “We might as well not show up at all, since we’re so late.”

Sehyoon frowns, but not at Donghun- he’s surprisingly not the reason they’re all hungover and skipping classes. Chan shrugs, unapologetic.

“We’ll have more time to work on those assignments if we take the day off,” he says, smiling through the manipulation to show he knows just how sincere it sounds. And, though Sehyoon doesn’t think for a moment that that’s why Chan had really wanted to skip, it does make sense...and...maybe he just wants to take a breather too, and spend time with them outside of a classroom, in the daylight.

So he takes a shower, and doesn’t rush himself, dressing slowly, playing music louder than he’d dared before and trying to pretend like he’s over worrying about one of his flatmates complaining about the noise. Donghun and Chan are gone when he steps out of the bathroom, but they’d pinned a note to the cork board telling him they were going back to wake Byeongkwan, and so Sehyoon smooths down his hair, tucks his sweater into his jeans, and heads up the flights of stairs to their room, feeling far more alive than he had that morning.

There’s a coffee waiting on him, that Chan points him towards as soon as he enters, and he slides into the desk chair and drinks slowly, not burning himself like he usually does in his desperation for caffeine. The sound of running water from the shower is just audible from the bathroom, and Donghun, in a t-shirt and jeans, is rummaging in a drawer for something to wear, as Chan sits on edge of the bed and swipes through an article on his phone.

Donghun snickers, and pulls out a shirt. “What about this?”

Both of them look up at him, holding a sheer, cropped shirt up to his chest- it definitely belongs to Byeongkwan, comically small against Donghun’s wider figure, an almost garish orange lace that’s completely see-through.

“Dashing,” Chan laughs. Donghun turns so he’s facing Sehyoon more directly, and raises a brow.

“I don’t think you could pull it off,” the halfling finds himself saying.

Donghun’s mouth drops open. “Is that how it is, is it?” Sehyoon shrugs, and he holds a hand up to his chest, as the other one shoves the top back into a drawer. “You wound me.”

Sehyoon considers him, gnawing on his lip thoughtfully as his eyes follow Donghun’s movements. “It’s strange seeing you out of a waistcoat.”

The wolf spares him a bemused glance over his shoulder. “The bad kind of strange?”

Sehyoon hadn’t really thought about it until now, but seeing Donghun shuffling around the room barefoot, in a white t-shirt stretched with age and blue, washed out jeans really _does_ look strange. Without the waistcoat and the bracelet and his hair tied up from his face, there’s less of his rugged kind of glamour clinging to him, the strange agelessness shed. His tattoos are in full view, the butterfly at his neck and a half-sleeve from the crook of one elbow to wrist, but they strangely make him look more approachable. 

“Just...the _different_ kind of strange. You look younger.”

Though it’s clearly a neutral statement, Donghun makes a displeased sound at the back of his throat, and Sehyoon watches with a small amount of amusement as the wolf hunts for a dark waistcoat and jacket, just as Byeongkwan waltzes out of the bathroom, steam billowing out around him.

“Sehyoon!” he cries happily, and then he’s skipping over to the desk and setting himself sideways into his lap, making Sehyoon yelp in surprise. 

“Bee-” Chan starts, but then his eyes flicker down to where Sehyoon’s winding his arms around the smaller boy’s waist, and he stops.

Byeongkwan gives him a victorious grin, and drops one of his own arms around Sehyoon’s shoulders. 

The sprite looks well-rested, eyes bright under a sheen of baby-pink shadow, glimmering slightly, the same shade as his sweater. He looks softer than usual too, drowning in fabric, though when he shifts to get more comfortable, Sehyoon notices the rips running all the way up his dark jeans and thinks there’s really only so _soft_ Byeongkwan will ever get.

“Did you sleep well?”

Byeongkwan nods, scrunching up his nose happily. “You’re sweet as sugar, Sehyoon.”

Sehyoon turns his head so he can see Chan on the bed, who’d abandoned his phone and has been watching them silently. 

“What’s the plan?”

The Fae leans back, resting his weight on his free hand. “The plan is _no plans_ , I believe.”

It feels like a day where Sehyoon could agree to that. 

“I want to get out of this room,” Byeongkwan says. “It’s bright outside.”

Donghun, now dressed in a black tweed jacket and a dark waistcoat, comes shuffling out of the bathroom, wrestling his hair into a hair tie. “Outside?”

Sehyoon’s stomach rumbles. Byeongkwan giggles, and jumps to his feet. “ _Food_ outside,” he amends, with a look in Chan’s direction.

The Fae nods, sliding his phone back into his pocket as he stands. “I know a good bakery.”

It’s a little further from campus than they usually go, surrounded by store fronts and park benches, and Sehyoon is practically skipping when Chan says _follow me_ and they wait together, as the baker jokes with Chan as if they were family, Chan pointing to pastries and cakes and ordering more coffees. Byeongkwan and Donghun had been left out in the sunlight, and stepping out of the shop shows them a few feet away, lounging on a grassy hill, stretched out on their sides like they’re picnicking, entirely ignoring the empty benches either side of them.

Donghun’s voice becomes audible as the other two join them. “-and that’s what I’m _saying_ , the best hangover cure is just lots of vodka and a few-”

Sehyoon sighs, arms dropping exasperatedly to his sides. “It’s only been a few hours since we sobered up, and you’re already thinking about getting drunk again?”

Donghun and Byeongkwan turn to stare up at him, and Chan tuts. “Leaving the two of you unsupervised was a bad idea.”

“There’s a party,” Byeongkwan grins, as they settle into the grass, announcing it with excitement as if neither of them had spoken. “Tonight at-”

“I know where it is,” Chan says, handing him a coffee.

“So you’re going?”

Chan glances at Sehyoon. “I never said that.” 

Sehyoon bites into a donut and realises how hungry he is- he’d hardly eaten anything at dinner, and they’d slept through breakfast. He shrugs as he takes another from the box. “Don’t let me stop you going.”

Donghun smiles at the donut theft, but then says, “So when we’re all enjoying ourselves, you’re gonna- what, study in your room all by yourself?”

“Those assignments-”

“Will be easy for you,” Chan inputs. He’d picked up a pastry, but only considers it suspiciously now he’s holding it, not eating. “You have plenty of time before they’re due next week.”

The only thing Sehyoon has really seen Chan eat, now he thinks about it, is the almost-raw meat Donghun had grilled for him. 

He finishes one donut on the second bite, and raises a brow at Chan uselessly holding onto the pastry. “Can you even eat the food you bought?”

“I _can_ , I’m still trying to decide whether I want to.” Then he frowns. “Stop changing the subject.”

“He doesn’t need to come,” Donghun says, surprising them all into glancing his way. He shrugs. “We stayed up last night. Maybe he needs a reset.”

“It’s not that, just…” Sehyoon tries to rub powdered sugar from his fingers and only succeeds in getting it all over his trousers. He sighs. “I wouldn’t know anyone.”

“You don’t need to know anyone," Byeongkwan shrugs. "You have us.”

Sehyoon ignores the pleasant thrill that runs through him. “Chan disappears everywhere we go," he points out, "and you're always in the crowds-”

“So stay with me," Donghun says.

“Where?" Sehyoon laughs. "In the bathtubs?”

A slow grin turns up the corners of the wolf’s lips. “We could have fun wherever you want, Yoonie.”

Chan rolls his eyes, and drops the pastry uneaten back into its box, where Byeongkwan immediately pounces on it. “If you’re worried about being abandoned, there’s really no need,” he reassures.

Byeongkwan nods. “Yeah, let’s go together! It won’t be as fun without you.”

Doubtfully, Sehyoon casts his eyes around the group. It isn't the first time they’d invited him somewhere, not by a long shot, but it feels different now it’s a public thing, after the kiss in the library and everything he’d learned on the rooftop and waking up soft fingers brushing his scalp. He’s still not entirely sure he can keep up with them all, but maybe, he thinks, he could handle them dragging him along. “You’re sure?”

Byeongkwan nods again, with more determination, and Chan too, casually, as if he doesn’t even understand why Sehyoon is asking.

“But don’t let us bully you into it,” Donghun adds.

Sehyoon can’t help but laugh. He’d been worried about being too boring for them, but they don’t even seem to have considered that, and the hopeful looks in Donghun and Byeongkwan’s eyes are strangely insistent. “No I, I had fun last night, I just…” He takes a coffee cup for something to do, staring at the trails of steam it raises in the air. He nods, seeing their relief, but then adds, “One condition.”

Donghun snorts, as the other two blink at Sehyoon curiously.

“What is it?” Byeongkwan asks.

Above the edge of a coffee cup, Sehyoon's eyes crinkle with a smile, and flicker to Chan.


	15. Fitting In

“You know,” Sehyoon says, staring at himself in the mirror of Byeongkwan and Donghun’s room, “when I said I wanted to _fit in_ , this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

Byeongkwan laughs, his chin digging more sharply into Sehyoon’s shoulder. His head hovers beside Sehyoon’s in the mirror. “You said you wanted to look like one of us,” he reminds him, and Sehyoon nods absently, still critiquing his reflection. He _had_ wanted to fit in more, to look like he was really part of the group, and Byeongkwan had taken it upon himself to help him achieve that end- now, though, Sehyoon can’t help but feel a little self-conscious. He’s comfortable in his vests and glasses, hair falling over his forehead. Byeongkwan’s styling isn’t like that at all.

He eyes the gold of the kimono Byeongkwan had insisted he wear with furrowed brows. “Aren’t I a little...overdressed?”

Donghun, coming out of the bathroom, chuckles. Byeongkwan had looked stricken, as if Sehyoon had cursed.

The sprite sighs and steps away, crossing his arms, eyes still on Sehyoon’s reflection as he says, “It’s a siren’s party. There’s no such thing as overdressed.”

“Siren party?" Donghun brightens. "You know, last time I went to one of those-”

Byeongkwan dissolves into a very sudden, very loud coughing fit, and Donghun stops, mouth hanging open. He spots the pointed look Byeongkwan is giving him. “Good call.”

Sehyoon laughs nervously. “I’m not going to ask.” He jolts, surprised, as Byeongkwan takes his hand and tugs him over to the chair, pushing on his shoulders until he drops into it.

“What are we doing now?”

Byeongkwan’s already rummaging through a drawer and pulling out a bag. Sehyoon notices the outline of a lipstick through the see-through plastic and holds up a hand, the same nervous bubble of laughter floating from his lips.

“Wait, wait, I thought we were done-”

Completely ignoring him, Byeongkwan riffles through the bag, takes out a kohl liner, and perches happily on one of Sehyoon’s legs. It’s an effective way to shut Sehyoon up.

“Close your eyes.”

Sehyoon’s hands hover uselessly in the air, unsure where to settle. “Why do I-”

Byeongkwan raises a brow. “Would you like me to poke you in the eye with this thing?”

Sehyoon closes his eyes. It’s difficult keeping them shut, with the feeling of Byeongkwan hovering so close to his face, even when he feels the drag of the pencil over his eyelid.

Donghun sighs, and the bed creaks as he sits. The weight of Byeongkwan leaves Sehyoon’s laps, and his eyes flutter open. The sprite’s gaze is intently focused on his face, and he gulps, but Byeongkwan gives him a bright, wide grin and turns away.

“All done.”

Donghun edges into his peripheral as the wolf leans to the side, trying to see Sehyoon’s face, almost falling off of the bed as he loses balance. Sehyoon runs a hand through his hair, feeling it catch a little in the spray Byeongkwan had used to curl it away from his forehead, and stands, feeling jittery.

Byeongkwan slides the bag back into the drawer and turns, eyes finally landing on Donghun. The wolf smiles, and gets to his feet too.

“How do I look?” he asks and, when Byeongkwan only laughs and rolls his eyes, turns a little to the side so he’s facing Sehyoon.

Sehyoon giggles before he can stop himself- Donghun has both hands on his hips, one leg extended, posing like someone on a magazine cover. He’s more formal than Sehyoon had seen him before, less rugged, in dark trousers instead of faded jeans, a nice black jacket to match over a white Burberry shirt. His hair falls around his face in two-toned ruffles, a silver bracelet clinking above the usual woven leather one at his wrist.

“Expensive,” Sehyoon says, because it's surprising.

Donghun blinks, bewildered. “Is that a compliment?”

The only answer he gets is Byeongkwan pointing to the red of Sehyoon’s ears and throwing his head back in sadistic laughter. He seems pleased with it.

Sehyoon waddles back over to the mirror. The liner around his eyes is subtle, smudged enough to look natural, and he finds he doesn’t mind it. It makes him feel slightly better about the finery of his clothes- for Byeongkan, maybe the kimono jacket and black-t-shirt-and-jeans combo would be tame, but to Sehyoon it feels like there’s suddenly a spotlight aimed right at him. Donghun’s contribution had been small, a little gold compass necklace, but Sehyoon finds his hands keep going up to it, toying with the chain for something to do, something to hold onto as he fidgets. He sighs and drops it again, letting it hit his chest.

“What's Chan _doing_?” 

Just as Donghun’s opening his mouth to reply, the door handle turns. 

Byeongkwan laughs. “Speak of the devil.”

Chan steps through the door with a slight frown, as if he’d heard the end of the sentence and is wondering whether they were talking about him. Sehyoon blinks at him dumbly.

He hadn’t expected his request to be accepted so easily. He’d really only said it as a joke, or maybe just to see whether they would agree, but Chan had stared at him for a long moment and then broken into a grin, and given an appreciative laugh as he agreed. Now, he’s stepping calmly into the room and closing the door quietly behind him, and Sehyoon has suddenly lost the ability to form a coherent sentence.

“I-uh- that’s-you…”

Chan smirks at him, tilting his head. This time, his grin looks sly, where Chan's grins usually are easy. “Not what you expected?”

He holds himself still as Sehyoon’s wide eyes trail over his face, down to his clothes. 

“No.”

No, not what he’d expected. He’d thought maybe Chan would look softer, like the Fae Sehyoon had known back home with all of their gentle curves, like something from an oil painting. But the icy blue of his eyes isn’t the only striking thing about him anymore- his hair is short, a gentle wave lifting it from his straight brows, and a cold, shining silver, nearly white. His features aren’t very different when Sehyoon really studies them, his cheeks thinner, the bones of his face more defined, but somehow he looks like an entirely different person, sharper, wide eyed and strong jawed and everything that makes people’s eyes linger like Sehyoon’s are doing. Chan doesn’t seem to mind the attention.

“Why haven’t you always looked like this?” Sehyoon hears someone say, and then Byeongkwan screeches laughter and realises it had been his own voice. His hands fly up to his mouth, but Chan’s smile only grows, sharp white teeth glinting. 

“That’s what I told him,” Donghun says, with none of Sehyoon's embarrassment, batting a strand of hair from his face. 

Chan rolls his eyes. “You know my reasons.”

Sehyoon does- is pleased to finally feel in-the-know like the rest of them- but can’t quite match it up to the image of Chan standing in front of him. He doesn’t think he’d ever want to hide, if that were him.

“So…” Chan says, arms crossed, fingers tapping his elbows. “Are you going to let me past?”

Sehyoon winces, realising he’d been standing in front of the door, and there’s no room for Chan to step around him further inside. His body reacts instinctively, turning before he’s finished worrying, and Chan laughs under his breath and breezes past.

It makes more sense to see him like this. He takes his usual spot in the chair, but now, he’s arresting, striking even in the dimness. Even his clothes are different, the dull beige exchanged for a low black shirt and wine-red jacket- _velvet-_ things that suit him far more than crumpled blazers and ugly ties. Sehyoon almost regrets asking for this reveal, because now it’s just as hard to look away from Chan as it's always been, but also equally difficult to look at him straight on.

Donghun smirks, studying Sehyoon’ reaction. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Will I?” Sehyoon laughs.

Chan gives him a sharp, close-lipped smile. “We’ll see.”

Another ten minutes are spent listening to the music Donghun had been blasting from his phone, Sehyoon trying not to stare to intensely as Byeongkwan fusses with his makeup and his hair, appraises his outfit and seemingly finds it lacking, rummaging in a drawer and finding a silk corset-like belt to cinch his waist, black shirt artfully covered with streaks of white. Donghun huffs and sighs, but they let him take his time, and it’s already creeping toward midnight by the time they’re eventually leaving, Chan leading them across campus. It’s a dorm this time, though a decidedly nicer one than their own block, and Sehyoon finds himself staring wide eyed around a room coloured in violet light. The living room is packed, but the music is slow and entrancing this time, no heavy, bruising bass, and the dancers are less wild, more pockets of quiet conversation that they circumnavigate to get to the kitchen.

“Shouldn’t you be making the rounds?” Donghun asks, and Sehyoon looks up in time to see Chan shaking his head.

“I said I’d give you all my undivided attention, didn’t I?” he asks, and Sehyoon can’t help a guilty grimace. He’d said _one_ condition, for him to come to the party, and it had been a big one- Chan usually draws a few glances, but now it’s different, now conversations quiet as he passes, now Sehyoon can see him set his jaw as if trying his hardest to ignore the feeling of eyes on him, the silver of his hair, the almost blazing blue of his eyes in the dimness.

“If you want to-”

Chan cuts him off easily. “I don’t.” Then his eyes flicker to a figure slouching in a bar stool a few feet away, and widen. “Hey.”

The others glance at him, frowning, and then follow his gaze. The kitchen has an island in front of a row of counters and minifridges, set with bar stools in dark red leather, though only one of them is taken. The boy's facing away from them, so only the back of a striped blazer and a dark crop of hair can be seen of him, but the aura around him is familiar enough that they all instantly recognise the object of Chan’s attention.

“Fledgling!”

Jun sighs, hanging his head, even before he turns a little to look at them sidling over to the island.

Donghun, in Donghun’s way, doesn’t seem to notice the less than positive reaction to their arrival. “What are you doing here?”

“Gatecrashing,” Jun says drily. There’s a tumbler in front of him, one hand cupped over the top of it, full of something dark. “Is that alright with you?”

Donghun throws himself into a bar stool with a happy sigh. “I suppose we can allow it. What’re you drinking?”

One corner of Jun's lips turns upward. “A bloody Mary.”

Byeongkwan giggles. Junhee watches him as the sprite rounds the other side of the island and starts hunting around the glasses and bottles piled on the countertops. Chan and Sehyoon hover, uncertain for different reasons, between Donghun and Jun’s chairs.

Jun hasn’t looked at them head-on since they spotted him- none of them except Donghun, anyway- and Sehyoon thinks he hasn’t spotted how different Chan looks until the vampire’s taking a sip of his drink, sighing, and throwing them both a glance over his shoulder.

“Would you two sit down already? People are staring.”

Startled, Sehyoon looks around them, just in time to see a few faces turning away, caught in the act, and Chan tugging self-consciously at his collar. He takes the seat closest to Donghun, smiling tightly as the wolf throws an arm around the back of his chair, which leaves Sehyoon the seat next to Junhee. The vampire stares at him levelly, one brow slightly raised, and Sehyoon shuffles forward and takes the spot beside him.

Byeongkwan returns with drinking glasses balanced between his fingers and a bottle in the other hand.

“Didn’t think we’d be bumping into you at any parties,” he says lightly, smiling when Jun glances up at him.

Donghun nods his agreement. “D’you know anyone here?”

“What do you think?” Jun says. Sehyoon shuffles, trapped in the middle, but Chan is keeping up his nonchalance very well, continuing to ignore the feeling of eyes on him and, in the same way, feigning ignorance to the tension at their table. He elbows Donghun lightly in the side, sighing.

“It would hardly be gatecrashing if he did, would it?”

Donghun grins. “Fair point.” He’s not as starry-eyed as Sehyoon- he notices Chan’s talking to him instead of Jun directly, and Chan can hear the amusement in his voice as he does. It’s probably for the best that Jun takes this moment to slink away from the table, not bothering to say goodbye or explain his sudden exit, and all they can do is stare after him.

Byeongkwan, from the other side of the aisle, giggles breathily and shakes his head. Chan, though, turns immediately to Sehyoon.

“You didn’t mention he’d be here.”

“How would I know whether he'd-” Sehyoon cuts off as Chan raises an elegant brow at him, challenging. The gesture is far more assertive now than it would have been when he'd been trying to look plain. “Alright,” Sehyoon relents. “I invited him. But I didn’t think he’d actually _show._ ” 

There’s really no point denying it, not to Chan, when he looks so knowing already. The Fae laughs.

 _You weren’t really annoyed, anyway_. That’s what he’d said earlier, in Sehyoon’s room, right? When he’d been pretending to be angry at Donghun for staying over.

Sehyoon shuffles, and then, haltingly, clears his throat and asks, “D’you….I mean, can you really tell what I’m thinking?”

Chan purses his lips as he considers his answer. “Most of the time I can make a good guess, yeah.” The barest hint of a smile is at his lips as he eyes Sehyoon in his peripheral. “Why? Something you don’t want me to know?”

Sehyoon can feel himself flush, and curses himself. It’s impossible to stop his thoughts from spiralling, with Chan staring at him like he already knows them all, impossible to quiet his mind now he’s so aware of someone else being able to peer inside it. Donghun cooes, elbow on the counter in front of him so he’s leaning forward enough to see Sehyoon’s face.

Byeongkwan, the angel, comes to his rescue.

“Chan, come over here and give me a hand, would you?” He makes a show of struggling with all of the bottles in his hands when they look up at him, and Chan slides from his stool to go to his aid, taking the hint.

“What’s it gonna be?” the sprite asks, and Sehyoon sees the fancy glasses and bottles of things he can’t pronounce and decides to shrug and leave it up to them. If that proves to be a dangerous decision, he’s always left with the backup plan of emptying his glass into plant pots when they’re not paying attention.

Donghun accepts the glass that’s pushed toward him with the quirk of a grin. “Are you really sure we want Chan on bartender duty?”

Sehyoon looks at him, and then back at the two mixing drinks, blinking rapidly. “Is that bad?”

Byeongkwan hums. “Fifty fifty.”

“It’s either like drinking water or pouring fire down your throat,” Donghun adds. As if to demonstrate, he takes a sip of his drink, splutters, and releases a rough breath, as if expecting the air in front of him to set alight. Then he gives Chan a thumbs up.

Sehyoon regrets the shrug. He regrets the shrug very much.

He’s just about to plead mercy when someone ducks into the stool beside him and he jumps, almost forgetting about Jun, not expecting him to come back to them from wherever he went.

The vampire smirks. He’d wanted to scare him. 

As he accepts his drink- something cloudy and purple, which does _not_ help him work out what his chances are- Sehyoon sees Jun really notice the difference in Chan for the first time. He’d been stubbornly avoiding their eyes until now, but Chan’s standing in front of them, and his eyes stray up to him for the shortest moment. Sehyoon can see his surprise, the way his eyes snag on the bright blue of Chan’s, flicker over his face, but then Jun’s looking away again, and he’s certainly better at hiding his reaction than the rest of the party-goers around them. Chan's bickering with Byeongkwan, fussing with a drink, and doesn't seem to notice.

As Sehyoon takes a sip, and realises Chan had made his drink far too weak for it to even be considered a cocktail- thank the Gods- one of the strangers around them shuffles over to their group, though surprisingly, he doesn't seem very interested in Chan. Instead, he steps up to the other side of Jun, leaning against the edge of the island.

“I’m Minhyuk,” the boy smiles. Sehyoon thinks he’s cute, in a kind of self-conscious, half-awkward way that some people might find endearing. Big, round eyes and a sweater that drowns him in soft blue fabric.

Junhee doesn’t even look at him. “I’m not interested.”

Sehyoon downs half of his drink in one go, suddenly grateful for Chan’s lack of drink-making skills. The boy takes it well, he supposes, though there’s an understandable, frozen moment before he laughs awkwardly and abandons his chances, blushing and avoiding their eyes as he shuffles off.

“Ouch,” Donghun says, turning to watch him go. “Would it kill you to be a little nicer?” 

Junhee glowers, waiting for him to realise what he’d just said, and Donghun frowns at him for a second, before a smile starts to tug at his lips, and he presses them together like he’s trying to hold in a laugh. “My bad.”

As if he's now incredibly invested in his role as barkeep, Byeongkwan leans over the counter, smiling conspiratorial, jutting his chin in the direction Junhee's failed suitor had fled. "Not really your type?" 

Junhee just stares at him. Without blinking, and for long enough that the air grows so tense around them, even Donghun notices and can't help but stare at Jun too, the hard lines of his face, the unrelenting stubbornness in his gaze, like he's daring Byeongkwan to look away. He doesn't quite succeed- though the other three are shifting uncomfortably in the silence, Byeongkwan lets it grow for a while, then grins, and wiggles a glass in the air.

"Can I make you a drink?"

Jun's eyes flicker to the glass. There's a beat, and then he rolls his eyes, and says, "I thought you'd never ask."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those interested-
> 
> chan's outfit- https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/852235929480936848/ (the pic that inspired this fic :) )  
> byeonkwan- https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/852235929484248844/  
> donghun- https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/852235929482288058/  
> jun- his outfit from the undercover performance ver mv  
> and sehyoon's is a tamer version of the outfit he wore in their favourite boys teaser images!


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